The Naked Truth Reciprocation
by Chezzles.ze.Great
Summary: After a few weeks trying to reconcile with the fact Sheldon has seen her completely naked, she confronts him with an ultimatum: bare it all or live with the consequences. Unexpectedly, her demands cause something entirely different to surface.
1. Proposition

Author's Note: Hey all! Two things: I am rapidly discovering I am an absolute Sheldon/Penny fanatic and I'm hoping this turns out well. Enjoi!

***

**The Naked Trust Reciprocation**

The weeks had dragged on since he'd driven to the hospital. She often got caught up in the story itself, forgetting for long moments, days even, why she kept getting drawn into the car ride before he'd tried too hard, smiled too freakishly, and tried to console her. She tried to focus on her drug-induced pleas for him to sing her "Soft Kitty" and the fact he had forced her to endure more pain than she'd planned while he adjusted the mirrors and drove somewhere between five and fifteen miles an hour. And then the niggling thought finally surfaced in full realization.

He'd peeked at her. And she'd been naked. He hadn't said it was an accident or blamed her. He'd simply said he'd peeked, as all the great heroes did. But, in typical Sheldon fashion, he felt he'd gotten away with it because he was special, different.

And he was. But still, she tossed and turned in her bed, she hadn't properly addressed the issue. She'd simply swallowed and shook her head, too absorbed in her pain to rebuke him. And now, breaking her own rule, she threw the sheets off and marched across the hall, knocking three times and mockingly calling, "Sheldon!" Another three knocks. "Sheldon!" And, the third time she knocked, she practically screamed his name: _"SHELDON LEE COOPER!"_

He opened the door as the last syllable fell from her lips and rubbed an eye, looking murderous, confused, annoyed, and curious all at once. "If my sleep cycle is being disrupted for another round of 'Soft Kitty,' I'll banish you from this apartment for a _month,_ Penny."

"Don't flatter yourself, Smell-don." She planted her hands on her hips and found herself sticking one hip out, delighting in the way his sleepy eyes drifted over her figure, trying to understand her posturing.

"Well?" He exploded a moment later, waking up a little more.

She chewed her tongue for an agonizing ten seconds and then cleared her throat. "Maybe it was the pain and the fact you were alternating between annoying and sweet, but I just realized some pertinent information a moment ago. Do you have any guesses?"

His razor-sharp wit was in full force despite the fact she'd awakened him unceremoniously and unnecessarily. "Did you realize you were in dire need of tutoring to fully grasp the physical world around you?"

Somehow, the question was sincere. Penny ignored the subtle jab at her intelligence by this reasoning. "No, Sheldon."

"Well, maybe--"

"I'll just tell you." She smiled sweetly and raked her eyes over him, almost giggling when he tensed very abruptly and recognized, through some deeply buried instinct, that she was checking him out. "You peeked."

"I'd hardly say I've peaked, Penny—just because I haven't won the Nobel Prize yet--"

"No, I mean you saw my tattoo and grabbed a handful of my chest." She folded her arms, pushing her breasts together, waiting for Sheldon to notice. He was holding his breath, knowing he was in trouble if she'd woken him up to mention this. His eyes fell to her ample cleavage and he stared for a long moment before tearing his eyes away, blushing.

"I apologize. It appears I've destroyed some of the inexplicable trust you've placed in me."

"Oh, but it's easily salvageable." She leered now, fixing him with another hungry look.

He paled, feeling weak, tired, dizzy. "Is there? I'm not familiar with the forgiveness process when the situation revolves around one person looking at another person naked against his or her wishes."

"Well, in court, it's a little different. In the real world, it's as easy as...." She sought a word he'd like. "Reciprocity."

He twitched, then jerked a little, and then twitched again, grasping the door jamb with a look of abject terror. "You're telling me you won't forgive me until you've seen _me_ naked?"

"It's only fair. An obligatory reciprocation." She was proud to see the light of understanding in his eyes; she was speaking his language. The manipulation and plotting seemed to elevate her to his level, as well.

"But Penny!"

"Goodnight, Sheldon. I'll let you mull it over." She winked and flounced over to her apartment before closing and securing the door. She waited a moment, her ear pressed against the space next to her deadbolt, and heard Sheldon squeak before darting inside. She could picture him opening his laptop and intently researching all alternate and still appropriate social conventions. She was confident he'd find nothing satisfactory.

***

Sheldon hadn't slept well the last three nights—Leonard could tell as much. The way he first pulled a packet of oatmeal from the cupboard, stared at it, returned it to its place, and sluggishly pulled a loaf of bread from a different cupboard, shaking his head briskly was a none-too-subtle clue. And Penny—he hardly sat still when she was around. The squirming was enough to alert him something was up.

Sheldon fell asleep on his keyboard around noon on a rainy Saturday morning and Penny, letting herself in, got a very malicious look on her smirking face as she tip-toed over to him and crouched, putting her chin on his shoulder very gently. Sheldon, Leonard noticed, didn't seem to notice for all his sleeplessness.

She leaned into his ear. "I am become death, Sheldon."

He jerked away from her, squeaking. Leonard flinched when he tried to bat her away, saw her laughing face, let his gaze fall to her tank top and, inevitably, her breasts, and tipped himself right out of his chair, cursing his eyesight through it all. Penny laughed, sashaying away from the wearied figure on the ground next to his chair and sat in his spot on the couch. Rather than saying anything, Sheldon melted against the floor and tensed his jaw. His eyes almost watered. Leonard panicked, thinking he might start to cry, but instead Sheldon rolled to his feet.

"Leonard, kindly call off your yapping terrier for five minutes!"

Penny dug herself into his cushion. "Bark bark, Sheldon!"

Leonard's head snapped back and forth like he was watching a very involved tennis match. "What is _wrong_ with you two?" He demanded when they both stuck their chins up at one another and stared without another word.

Sheldon should have known better. He should have known Penny didn't fight fair, that she actually sort of enjoyed playing dirty. Still, he didn't expect her to fold her arms primly and address Leonard as if he had some sort of power to persuade Sheldon to acquiesce to her ludicrous demands.

"Sheldon saw me naked after the whole falling in the shower ordeal." Penny squinted at Sheldon with an eerie smile on her face. "I've decided the only way he can make it up to me so I'll leave him alone is a little tit for tat."

"It's a _figurative_ expression, Penny!" Sheldon shrieked, balling his hands into fists.

"Just like you told me a metaphorical story about Lot and the other heroes? About how they weren't supposed to look either because it never ends well? Did you really think you were the exception, Sheldon?" She almost tricked herself into being really angry about. In reality, she was only a little peeved and wouldn't actually let him follow through on it, provided he wasn't too whiny or conniving trying to convince her to change her mind.

He twitched wildly, his face full of spasms. He clutched the hems of his sleeves as if he thought she'd run over and try to tear his clothes from his thin frame. For a split second, Penny actually felt bad for him. He was quaking, looking at her with as much pleading in his eyes as he could muster, and yet she couldn't find humility. He wasn't sorry he'd done it. He was simply sorry he'd spilled the beans and alerted her in the first place. If it hadn't been for his big mouth, he would have the image burned into his eyelids for his private curiosity and no horrific ultimatum.

"I haven't even put a time limit on it." She explained to Leonard, never taking her eyes off Sheldon's. "When he gets sick of me treating him like this, he'll break down."

With one final twitch, Sheldon yanked his coat from the back of the armchair and pulled it on, groping for his keys as he passed by the door. Leonard spun, practically chasing him out the door. "Where are you going?"

Pausing at the top of the stairs, his roommate struck a meaningful pose. "The only place where things make sense anymore."

"Late night research?" Leonard asked weakly, just wanting to know where he'd have to go at midnight when Sheldon's sleep schedule overrode his desire to hide.

"No, stupid, the comic book store." And with that, Sheldon swept himself down the stairs.

***

Penny awoke with a gasp at 3:44 AM, rubbing her forehead, confused why she had suddenly sat up and almost screamed. Then, in the silence, she heard a soft trio of knocks on her bedroom door.

"Penny?" She waited for the two other repetitions, but there was nothing. Standing, she opened the door, glaring, and saw Sheldon, unkempt and jittery, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck, chewing his lip and tongue.

"You're abusing your spare-key privilege, Sheldon."

He pulled on the collar of his jacket and cleared his throat. "Can we attempt to reach a compromise, Penny? One wherein both of us are appeased?"

"Hmm, I'm not necessarily sure I can lessen my demands." She blinked slowly at him.

"I'm willing to make a great deal of other concessions if you retract this particular demand." He hugged his clothes tighter to his body and blushed yet again. "A _great_ deal."

"Name the conditions." Penny insisted, folding her arms with a lift of her eyebrow.

Clearing his throat again, Sheldon looked around her bedroom quietly before muttering, "I don't know. It depends on what...you would consider a sufficient replacement."

Penny knew exactly what she wanted. "Don't bitch at me about being in your spot." His right eye fluttered in anticipated annoyance. "I'd like to cook a meal for you boys once in a while and not have you throw it out just because it's oatmeal day or Thai night._" _He gritted his teeth, the cords of his jaw standing out. "If I _accidentally_ bump into you, it'd really help my ego if you didn't immediately wash your hands, take a shower, or whip out a bottle of Purell."

"Penny--"

She shushed him loudly and tightened her arms. "And you're taking me out to dinner, Sheldon. Because you _owe _me."

"I beg your _pardon!_" His pride could no longer take it. "I put myself in a very uncomfortable position for you already, Penny! I drove a car, visited the swirling cesspool of germs and bacteria better known as the hospital emergency room, and sung 'Soft Kitty' to you!"

"And I rubbed VapoRub on your chest once!" She exploded. "The whole taking care of each other when the other is sick thing is flat even. I went through hell appeasing you when you were sick and you made everything a big fat deal when you help me." She cleared her throat, calming down. "No, this is about the fact I trusted you to help me and you took the opportunity to ogle me!" After a momentary pause, she added, "I didn't think you were capable of ogling, to be honest."

"I hardly ogled you." He complained.

She held up one finger about an inch from his face. "You _grabbed_ my boob." Another finger popped up, nearly stabbing his eye. "You saw my tattoo." Inexplicably a third finger popped up. She said nothing.

"Yes?" He waited patiently, trying not to cringe.

She nearly bubbled over with tiredness and irritation. "And you were a big fat poopie-head all night, Sheldon!"

He blanched, rubbing the back of his neck, and quietly nodded, shuffling his feet. He continued to nod and then muttered something and rubbed a hand over his shortly cropped hair. Penny waited, expecting him to say something to her, or have something witty to toss in her face. But nothing. He looked up at her, melting her heart with the guilt in his eyes.

"I apologize, Penny."

She tried to look anywhere but his face. She looked around his head, found herself staring at his ears, his jaw, his chin. She looked at his rumpled clothes and saw him fiddling with his watch and her eyes following the slim lines of his arms up to his absurdly long neck and found him staring intently at her, though the second she locked gazes with him, his eyes fell away much like they had the first time she'd met him. Her heart started to pound and she stomped her bare foot on the ground, clenching her hands into fists, tightening her lips, looking skyward.

"Well, shit."

"Pardon?" Sheldon collected his hands behind his back and straightened up, bouncing up to the balls of his feet curiously.

Frustrated beyond belief, she stamped her foot again. "I hate you sometimes, Sheldon. I really do."

His eyebrows knitted together. "I don't understand. What is the social protocol that led you to feel this way?"

Sighing, she ignored his question. "Why did you apologize?"

The question made him look desperately around her apartment to distract himself. It was, as usual, in a state of utter chaos. He focused on the magazines spread over her coffee table, couch, and floor. It worked for a while, but Penny appeared to have all the patience she needed to get her answer.

Sheldon sighed. "I suppose," he began, looking at her drowsy eyes, "because I've become increasingly aware how much you accommodate me and my needs. And, I might add, you very rarely torment me or ask the unreasonable of me, no matter how myopic my complaints may be."

She looked at him with glimmering eyes, a slight smile on her lips. She folded her arms, leaning against the door jamb, knowing he wasn't done.

Sheldon swallowed. "So...I'm sorry. I'm sorry because I would...be a little lost without you here and I don't really want to upset you unnecessarily."

She smiled gently, looking down at her bare feet and his left pant leg, which was cuffed from curling up on the couch trying to tire himself out to sleep for the evening. His failure just made it all the sweeter that he'd come to her door at this ungodly hour to compromise with her and soothe his worried mind. The guilt and the apprehension had combined, putting Penny at a decided advantage. Making up her mind, she cleared her throat a little and clapped her hands, rubbing her palms together.

"Sheldon, sweetie...did Leonard go grocery shopping and pick up mouthwash?"

Wondering if she were trying to change the subject or simply unresponsive to his attempts to gain forgiveness, he frowned lightly and brought his hands up to the middle of his chest, wringing them together. "Yes, last night he picked up all the required materials from the list on the fridge, as he always does."

She nodded, smiling, and touched her index finger to her lips, looking to one side, and laughed to herself gently before standing up on the balls of her feet and steadying herself by gripping his shoulders. He opened his mouth to ask her just what her previous question had to do with _anything_ when she made a soft shushing noise and shook her head. He didn't close his mouth, but the words expired in his throat.

She shot him one last smile before shutting her drowsy eyes and pressing a soft, slightly open-mouthed kiss against his parted lips. He kept his eyes open, staring over her jaunty ponytail into the train-wreck that was her apartment, but after the first few seconds passed and his heart had started to pound, he found he could hardly keep them open.

He lost count, not because the kiss lasted too terribly long, but because the moment he closed his eyes he lost all understanding of time, his surroundings, and the significance one might tie to those sorts of measurements.

Not intending for the moment to turn into such a poignant display of affection, Penny waited for her feet to remind her she'd spent all day standing on them before releasing Sheldon's shoulders and sinking to the flats of her feet. Opening her eyes after a moment, she realized he'd bent down and followed her, his eyes pinched shut, lips still crushed to hers.

She made a conscious effort to end the kiss then, if only because she thought he might overreact when all was said and done. Breaking apart at last, she put her hand in the middle of his chest and patted it warmly, smiling once again, her face tingling from the proximity. He had, of course, smelled clean, neat, and Sheldon-like. The taste was Crest toothpaste and Listerine.

It wasn't until she giggled lightly and shut her bedroom door she realized her heart was pounding, her palms were sweating, and her chest was heaving. She lifted a hand to run over her pallid face when she realized she hadn't heard Sheldon budge from his position at her door. Her stomach turned over a little and she sighed, wondering what she might say to him, or if she should say something at all. After a few moments with her standing at the door, her ear a millimeter away, she heard Sheldon exhale loudly and, after another long few moments, he shuffled to the door, exited, and securely locked the door behind himself.

She let out her own held breath, the one she hadn't known she'd been holding, and climbed back into bed, sighing and staring up at the ceiling. _Uh oh._

***

"Has Sheldon ever been kissed?" Penny asked as Leonard unpacked the many Thai food items he had picked up for their usual Wednesday-night supper. He promptly dropped his own container of noodles and managed to close the lid before the noodles slipped off and touched any inch of their floor. He looked up as Raj and Howard both froze, staring at her.

It was Raj who laughed first, but the others followed shortly. They looked at one another and refueled their mirth several times over until Leonard noticed Penny had started to eat and didn't look amused. Hitting Howard in the chest and shooting Raj a serious look, he cleared his throat and took his usual seat.

"No, Penny. Sheldon...has not kissed or been kissed by anyone other than his precious Meemaw."

Howard stifled a new giggle just barely.

She chewed her tongue a moment as containers opened and Sheldon's empty spot seemed to mock her. He'd breezed through the room not ten minutes before with a worried look on his face, explaining hurriedly he'd be right back and he had to run to the corner store for the mustard he needed to make tonight sufficient. It was the first time Penny had known him to offer to get his own condiments. The night before nagged at her mind, but she refused to believe her little "positive reinforcement" had anything to do with his journey to the corner market.

But when guilt or uncertainty weighed on her mind, as it had when Sheldon had leant her money, she could hardly contain herself. She put her fork into her container of Thai food and lifted her hands, forming a tent with her fingers, pressing her index fingers against her lips. She waited for total silence, not realizing this meant everyone had mouths full of spicy noodles.

"I kissed him last night."

Around his noodles, Leonard choked and coughed out, "On the _mouth?_"

Howard sniggered. "What was that like? Did he warp the two of you to some romantic alternate dimension where he knew not to gargle hand sanitizer afterward?"

She opened her mouth to retort when the door swung inward and Sheldon, shrugging off his jacket, consulted his watch with one arm, furiously trying to shake off his coat with the other. "Good Lord, is that the time?"

"Yes, Sheldon, you're actually _late_ for dinner tonight." Leonard replied and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, ignoring his roommate's disgusted look. "How was your day?"

Giving him a wearied look, Sheldon took his food from Penny's waiting hands. "It was going rather swimmingly until this banal chitchat."

"Sorry to ruin everything." Leonard sulked, shooting Penny a disbelieving look. She took up the challenge, remembering Sheldon's promise from the night before and cleared her throat, looking pointedly at the boys' kitchen.

"Tomorrow," she announced, "I'm going to make lasagna for everyone. Raj, Howard, you're invited of course."

They rotated, looking at Sheldon, waiting for his complaints. He did stare at Penny hatefully for a moment, but said nothing. She hated to admit it, but he did keep covenants well. She swallowed, willing her excitement to die away, but her body was buzzing. He lunged across her a moment later and burgled the remote control from Raj, turning the channel to a "Star Trek" rerun. She surprised them all by calmly cooing she'd seen this episode—she liked it. They looked at Sheldon expectantly and he took a large bite of his dinner and mentioned a "Battlestar Galactica" marathon on another channel, if there were objections.

Leonard made a small noise, not quite sure what to make of these subtle yet profound differences in Sheldon's behavior. Lifting her eyebrows, Penny dug around in her dinner container and offered no preference. They settled on "Star Trek" and were able to do so in relative amiability until Penny noticed none of the boys were watching the show so much as staring at her and Sheldon. She squirmed at first, wondering what it was now, and then glanced at Sheldon to see if he'd noticed. As usual, he was oblivious, though he did seem a tiny bit flustered. As he put his remaining portion of food on the table, he took a hold of a discarded pillow from the chair Leonard had sat in and hugged it to his chest, squinting at the television as if he couldn't quite see it.

She looked down and saw nothing out of the ordinary on her end. A modest skirt baring very little leg, a fairly conservative shirt, and no embarrassing stains. Perplexed, she looked at Howard first, frowning, and then questioningly at Sheldon, who scrunched his nose and folded in half over the pillow, rubbing his face with his hands.

"Sheldon?" Leonard asked tentatively.

"Lasagna sounds _wonderful._" He spat, still folded over his knees.

Howard laughed uncomfortably. "Yes, we know. We're all excited."

Guilt stabbed at Penny as they quietly finished dinner and brought out controllers to some new game Howard had suggested they play. Sheldon, working at his computer, declined the invitation to have the first go and started to type furiously on his computer, lost in thought, occasionally rising to add something to his whiteboard.

She sucked at the new game. She gave up taking her turn after the first few rounds and worked her way over to Sheldon's whiteboard, where he'd labeled some of the equations and was staring between the two at a blank space, trying to reconcile the two and find some sort of compromise. She lifted her hand and pointed to a triangle shape.

"I think this might be it."

He cast her a weary smile. "Wouldn't that be just wonderful?" The smile fell.

She rolled her eyes. "I'm going to install a tiny speaker behind your ear that will emit a high-pitched whistle when someone makes a joke, uses sarcasm or irony, or expects you to laugh. It'll help a lot. Christmas is coming up."

"I don't see the point trying to top last year's Saturnalia, to be frank." He drew a square root sign and stared at it a moment, grudgingly admitting the delta sign from the left-hand equation had to be transferred into the final equation, despite there being no way for Penny to have possibly known this.

"It's not about improvement," she informed him. "It's about togetherness, commercialism, and letting everyone who matters to you that you care."

"How poetic." He paused, tapping his finger against his chin. "Why are you not engaging in the new video game craze with Wolowitz and Leonard?"

She fixed the floor with a pout. "I'm bad at it. I can't get a handle of the controls and I think I've gotten too used to working with the computer keyboard on 'Age of Conan.'"

"You probably just need to enter into the settings grid and alternate between inverted and regular to see which is your preference. Most of the controls are adaptable to your specific method of play—it could be analogous to 'Halo 3' if you find the right combination." He peeked at her expression through the corner of his eye and fought a smile. "They'd never know what hit them."

"I'll only go along with this crazy plot if you come help me destroy them for killing me a collective thirty-seven times before letting me 'take a break.'" She fluttered her eyelashes at him. "Best evil duo ever?"

He snorted and gestured at the board weakly. "I have a lot yet to do, Penny. Another time."

Sighing, she let her hopes fade away. "I should be used to that answer by now."

Casting her a startled look, he frowned lightly. "What do you mean?"

She smiled at the way his voice had pitched all over the place, sounding sort of panicked or pre-pubescent somehow, and shrugged, not really wanting to answer as she replied, "I'm always asking you for favors—I very rarely have the opportunity to return the favor, y'know?"

"The sentiment isn't lost." He cleared his throat. "As soon as I find a healthy ovum, I'll be indebted to you all over again."

"Will I get another hug?" she teased without thinking.

She watched a faint pink blush spread across his cheeks as he scribbled down a few numbers, constants, and derivatives. Knowing the boys weren't paying attention at all, shouting at one another as they ambushed Raj hiding in some abandoned warehouse with zombies flanking his every side, Penny pushed Sheldon's hand away from the whiteboard and stepped between him and it, fixing him with an expectant stare. When he held still, breathing forgotten, for almost twenty seconds, she shook her head and sighed, pulling him just a little and standing against on the balls of her feet. This time, aware of her surroundings, she kissed him just barely on the corner on the mouth, just a peck.

"I don't understand." Sheldon murmured as he capped his marker and frowned at his fingertips, Penny still standing between him and what was now mostly a meaningless mass of numbers and symbols. His head swam. "There is no correlation between our last encounter and this one. You're confusing me and I can't get any work done, Penny."

She sighed as he grumped over to his desk to find something to wipe her from his mind and followed, kneeling next to his chair as he sat and typed into the Google search engine, "proper social protocol" and paused, looking for the best words to describe his situation.

"Look, I'm sorry, Sheldon. You know I don't mean to ruin your work, right?"

"You're hardly ruining it," he defended. "I'm more than capable of pushing aside your physical expressions for science."

She blushed, knowing this was his way of telling her he knew she was flirting, except she knew Sheldon Cooper, PhD. had no idea when someone was making the moves on him. He could call it such in so many words, but there was an impossible bridge to cross getting him to understand the implications and the meaning of social interactions at once. He never seemed to recognize the cause for distress and the fact someone was distressed until it was explained to him. He couldn't lie, keep secrets, or abstain from speaking his mind. And she, in her stubborn way, refused to let him get away with all the other stuff that seemed to step beyond ignorance and into insensitivity.

Very suddenly Penny realized she really admired him, even though she wanted to wring his neck. At the same moment she realized he had neither retreated to his room nor washed off the place she'd kissed him. She had a thousand questions on her tongue, but she held them in, knowing any second now Leonard would beg her to rejoin the crew. A calm settled over her; she knew when she asked Sheldon would help her set up her controls and give her some integral piece of information. He delighted in ruining the others' days.

"Why are you picking on me, Penny?" Sheldon asked very quietly.

"Oh, Sweetie, I'm not picking on you," she reached and hesitated before gritting her teeth and rubbing a small circle on his back. "Besides, I thought I was hardly a distraction."

He turned his head sharply and fixed her with a tired but still irritated stare before responding with, "You know how Leonard responds to your teasing and physical expression—do you expect me to be the same? I am trying to make the entire incident in your apartment resolve so you are satisfied and still regard me as a friend. He's trying to get in your pants. It's not fair you treat us the same!"

"I-I'm not treating you the same!" she protested hotly, trying to ignore her initial stutter. "You're much more complicated than Leonard, trust me."

"I would say so," Sheldon muttered, looking mildly pleased with himself.

Penny went on to add, "I actually think if I tried to feel you up and kiss you it might do more bad than good."

Sheldon stopped browsing through Google's recommendations surrounding his query on "proper social protocol in male and female friendship dynamics" and stared witlessly at the screen, trying to imagine Penny wanting something from him and using her body to turn his own against him. He imagined, as much as he hated it, it would work. When they'd first met her, he'd outed both himself and Leonard as people willing to consider donating sperm. She knew he wasn't completely untouched by his libido, however little of it there was. Her own sexual frustrations were much easier to identify—every once in a while they would quest together on 'Age of Conan' and she would eventually leave him again, the morning after some new meathead trotting from her apartment triumphantly.

She stared over his shoulder at the preview of a website his cursor was hanging over.

"Hm, by that blogger's logic, I'll have slept with all four of you by February." Penny closed an eye and looked at the ceiling thoughtfully. "How long do you think it'll take me to psychologically mend after the Wolowitz experience?"

"Penny, stop."

She giggled. "Oh, lighten up, Sheldon. I know the mere _thought_ of being naked and sweaty with someone probably makes you itch to take a shower, am I right?" There was a pause. "Or is it a cold shower?"

"Strike one, Penny."

"Oh no you don't!" she crooned deviously. "This is, whether you believe it or not, for your own good, Sheldon. I'm taking you out of your comfort zone, inch by inch."

"I'm perfectly happy where I am, thank you." He glanced at her, daring her to disagree. He shouldn't have.

"You're happy like the Flash is slow," she laughed.

His temper flared. "The only reason I've been at all unsatisfied this past week has been because of you! First you tell me I have to strip naked to appease you, and now it's not enough I'm allowing you to dictate entire portions of my routine for an indeterminate amount of time—_no, _you have to behave as if I'm one of the slavering idiots who spends his days treating you like a piece of meat. I have half a mind to say you don't mind being treated as such sometimes, Penny!" He stood and she shrank away from him, hating that Leonard had paused the game to watch the scene unfold. The others were, undoubtedly, staring, too. "I don't merit the comparison to any of them—you act as if I should be embarrassed I'm not pawing at what you're always putting on display. Well, I'm sorry, but you deserve better, so I _apologize_ for not being one of them."

There was a lengthy pause and Sheldon's red face paled, his lips turned a strange shade of blue and he whispered a hoarse plea for his own dismissal and retreated to his bedroom, snapping the door shut.

Turning, her eyes glittering wetly, Penny laughed a forced, fake sound. "Well, I think I'll turn in early, boys. I'm a little...tired."

"Yeah, g'night, Penny," Leonard replied awkwardly, watching her turn cautiously and exit, closing the door softly behind her. A minute or so passed and Raj cleared his throat, lowering his gaze as Sheldon, shrugging his coat on, grabbed his keys from the bowl and left in a huff, not bothering to say a word to his dumbfounded friends.


	2. Experimentation

Author's Note: Wow! You guys are amazing; thank you so much for all the positive feedback. I never expected this little idea of mine to take off in the slightest. I'm sincerely flattered and hope you all keep reading and reviewing. It's an amazing feeling seeing all of the responses.

On a technical note, I'm sorry it was unclear whether or not Penny and Leonard were in fact a couple. I hope this chapter clears that up. Also, I'm not sure how much longer I can make these chapters this long...of course, waking up to 15 reviews is a pretty good source of inspiration. Just saying : )

***

Penny turned her pillow over but found the other side hadn't dried yet either. This started up a fresh round of tears and she punched the pillow heatedly, letting out a cough of surprise when feathers sprayed out from a burst seam and showered over her bed and floor. Dropping flat to the mattress with a little sob of exasperation, she stared at the shadows on her ceiling cast by passing cars and counted the number of evil monsters she could make of the ambiguous shapes. She was reliving her terror of the Boogey Man when she heard a soft sound in the living room of her apartment and rose, creeping to the door of her bedroom. Opening it a crack, she bit back a sniffle and peered out, squinting in the darkness.

A familiar, lanky figure was sitting on her sofa, his hands folded in his lap. The train-wreck had been tidied. He was quiet with exertion and anxiety. He wiped a hand over his mouth and bent his face into his hands, rocking back and forth a short moment before standing, rearranging the pillow he'd displaced by sitting in Penny's spot, and walked toward the door leading into the hallway. Pausing, he glanced back at the dishes he'd scrubbed, the clothes he'd folded and placed in her laundry basket, and the magazines he'd arranged by title and date. She would notice, perhaps even be miffed at the intrusion. She might yell at him for both this and the harsh words he'd hurled at her hours earlier. Or, and he was praying on this sliver of a chance, she'd realize it was how he apologized when he didn't have the words to express his regret.

She waited for him to turn the lock from outside her apartment with the spare key she'd given to them for emergencies and scampered into the living room, looking around the spic-and-span surfaces endlessly, relief flooding through her veins. She sat, hugging the pillow he'd rumpled by resting after his frantic cleaning and realized he hadn't been wearing his pajamas. She wondered if he'd just gotten back from whatever late-night excursion he'd been on. It was well past two in the morning, meaning he had not only willingly disrupted his sleep schedule, but he'd then extended it further to creep into her apartment and clean. This time it wasn't his mind twitching at the thought of the disarray (or, as he'd call it, entropy) in her apartment. He'd given her something, the only thing he could think of.

"Oh, Sweetie," she ran her fingers over the edge of the stacked magazines and noticed he'd slipped a business card for a finance manager where the latest issue of _People_ had been opened. She'd been ignoring all the cards lately, wanting to get her life on track by her own volition, but it was hard. Weakness overcame her will to be responsible and she bought shoes, hats, purses, snackfood, and rum to soothe herself, remind herself she wasn't a total failure. And the men across the hall were kind, generous, and, when convenient, selfless. Everything she tried to be.

Lowering her chin to the pillow, she inhaled, found nothing, and curled on the couch, shivering, until she fell into an exhausted sleep.

When she awoke over an hour after the boys had presumably left for work, she opened her door to tack a note to their door warning them she was going to need someone to pick up some essentials for lasagna night since she'd be at work until just before dinner and nearly tripped on a small foam shape wedged against the door jamb.

She picked it up. It was one of those stress relieving balls to squeeze when hands wanted to clench into fists and teeth wanted to grind. The shape was that of a gray, wrinkled brain, and written in carefully divided portions, were short phrases.

_Verbal communication_

_ Calculus_

_ Theoretical Physics_

_ Pride/Hubris_

The first four portions made her smile. They were large, taking up most of the fist-sized lump of porous foam, outlined with black Sharpie. On the sides, in smaller sections filled in with a fine-tipped permanent marker, he'd written more.

_Body language_

_ Emotion_

_ Humility_

_ Self-expression_

_ Mandarin_

In the smallest section, hardly legible without holding the thing an inch from her nose, between _Pride/Hubris_ and _Humility_, she managed to read on.

_Sympathy/Self-awareness_

The headache of crying herself asleep throbbed anew and she scrunched the brain into a tightly wound ball before releasing it, watching it reform itself, a representation of Sheldon's brain and his limited understanding of himself as a human interacting with other humans.

Penny called into work and found a heart-shaped pillow Kurt had won for her at a carnival a few years ago. She tore the lace trim from the sides, neatly cut the frayed edges with scissors, and took a black marker to it, dividing it into various sized portions, hardly hearing herself humming as she considered the allocation of herself she was proclaiming.

In the largest five sections, she wrote the obvious.

_Family_

_ Independence_

_ Common Sense_

_ Compassion_

_ Stubbornness_

In the remaining five spaces, she faltered and found herself writing little known facts about herself. What she missed, what she believed about herself, what she hated but knew to be true.

_My dog Kiki_ (who died when she was seven)

_Insecurity _(it ate up a lot of her emotional well-being, as much as she hated to say it)

_The Midwest _(she resented being told she represented the homely stereotype of an entire region, but would never admit the odd pride she felt when pegged as a native Nebraskan)

_Halo Night _(where this had come from she didn't bother to explore)

And finally, her fingers tired from carving the ink into the soft, flexible fibers covering the front of the heart-shaped pillow, she found an untouched spot, about the same size as the five largest, and carefully scratched at the fibers until they were darker than the others.

_Sheldon, Leonard, Raj, and Howard_

Before she could think about it a second longer, she tucked the thing under her arm, grabbed her spare key to their apartment, and marched across, opening their door and carefully situating the soft shape in Sheldon's spot. Sighing, she looked around the tidy interior and locked the door behind herself as she let herself out.

***

Sheldon had feigned interest in a textbook on the way to work that morning, not wanting Leonard to poke into his brain, which was addled enough. He was nearing frustration; until he'd found himself quite unable to fall asleep the night before, he'd been pleasantly curious about his predicament. Now he was bordering on infuriated trying to figure out why he was able to relax when he thought about the fact he'd broken his routine, but not when he considered the risk of it happening again. The lasagna tonight wouldn't kill him, if Penny decided to come by at all. He hoped sincerely she understood what he was meekly admitting.

He imagined a scenario as Leonard passed Euclid and turned the radio on, enjoying the silence despite the oddity of it all. He imagined sitting with Penny in her apartment and telling her he was sorry yet again. He apologized for his idiocy when it came to social matters. He apologized for making her cry, for belittling her, for always pointing out her inferior intellect when she was sometimes painfully aware of her meaningless deficiencies. He imagined himself looking at his knees, muttering something about he was working on it, but he couldn't be bothered to remember anything useful.

Based on her prior reactions to his mistakes, she would respond in one of two ways. She would either force him from her apartment and slam her door, or kiss him again. He had to say he didn't particularly mind either outcome. A chance to spar with her was always fun, and the kissing wasn't so terrible either. The itch to rinse out his mouth or shove her away always faded in the first few seconds. The jolt that had shot through his stomach at her innocent peck the night before had made his palms itch and he'd briefly wondered if he was allergic to something about the situation. Curious.

Leonard turned off the radio. "How was it?"

"How was what?" He looked out of the book, dizzy from pretending to read in the car.

"You kissed my girlfriend, Sheldon." Leonard gave him an amused smile. "Or did you already forget?"

Sheldon looked out the window. "I would hardly say I kissed _her._"

"And you just sat there and let it happen? Or did you, you know?" Leonard puckered his lips ever so slightly, grinning as Sheldon's eyes slithered to the slight physiological change. He copied, trying to remember what he'd done in response. The only thing that came to mind was the ache that had stirred him when he felt her start to lean away. He'd followed her, hunched to meet her lips, and kept a polite proximity to her, giving her plenty of room to dart away if she wanted. She hadn't right away.

"I don't remember." Sheldon finally replied stiffly. "And anyway, it's not important."

"The hell it isn't! She was your first." Leonard bit back a snigger. "You always remember your first."

"You know," Sheldon pretended he wasn't a tiny bit embarrassed, "I was reading last night that a man in your position would usually react to such a thing with anger, even fisticuffs."

His smile finally falling a little, Leonard made a hard right turn. "That would imply I'm threatened by you."

"I suppose that would have to be the scenario. And since I'm obviously not suited to her needs, that wouldn't be a problem." Satisfied with the answer, though perplexed why his stomach had turned, Sheldon looked out his window again and wondered if he'd pushed it when he had that extra glass of warm milk after returning from Penny's apartment the night before. Something had been disrupted, that much was certain.

Leonard's hands tightened on the wheel and he wrinkled his nose. If it had been Raj or Howard who'd been kissed, he might have been mad at her, or her and her victim. But it was Sheldon. Leonard could hardly believe it, but he actually was proud of his roommate, and happy he had made even this tiny step forward. He was happy for both of them, the more he thought about it, though the implications of that thought made him dizzy. Penny could only feel pride at her ability to break through Sheldon's cool exterior and find the part of him rattled by emotion. When they fought, it was a battle of the wills. Last night, Sheldon had inserted his emotions into his entanglement with her, and she'd been upset by it. What was she doing to him? Other than disappointment, sadness, and the occasional irritation, Sheldon rarely conveyed much of anything. With her, he was scared, happy, angry, nostalgic...

"You missed the driveway," Sheldon pointed out unnecessarily.

Leonard put on his blinker and considered an illegal U-turn, but he didn't have the heart. If Penny forgave him, Leonard would be solely responsible for Sheldon's bad day.

***

Leonard read Penny's note on the door and handed it off to Sheldon while he unlocked the apartment. Upon entering, he dropped his keys in the bowl, tossed his jacket to the nearest chair, and paused, staring at the obnoxious red heart-shaped pillow in Sheldon's spot. He slid his eyes over to Sheldon suspiciously, knowing Penny was the only person who could have possibly put it inside without breaking the lock. She was not, historically, one to back down from a fight with Sheldon. She knew he would gloat forever and couldn't bear the thought of being more fodder for his ego. So, perhaps she was trying to show she was the bigger person by apologizing for her intrusion into his personal space. Or, more likely, she was taunting him by sending him a love trinket. Neither possibility alarmed Leonard personally, but he was curious and apprehensive to see what Sheldon would say when he saw it.

Following routine, Sheldon deposited his bag and his jacket in his room before returning to the living room, noticing Leonard hadn't moved from his position near the door and glanced around, wondering if he'd missed something, his eyes settling on Penny's gift. Walking over cautiously, he picked up the cheap novelty and stared adamantly at the letters she'd meticulously scraped into the fabric, leaking black into the very core of the pillow. It smelled of Penny and her apartment, of Sharpies, and of tears. He lifted it, not understanding at first how he should interpret the printed letters until his eyes fell on his name, listed first.

Without a word to Leonard, he took the pillow into his room and hesitated before setting it gently in the center of the pillows neatly stacked at the head of the bed. He smoothed an errant wrinkle and stared a moment at the darkness of his sleeping quarters before turning around and running directly into Leonard's suspicious glare.

"What was that, Sheldon?"

Collecting his hands behind his back, Sheldon cleared his throat. "This morning, I apologized to Penny. I believe she is letting me know I'm officially forgiven."

Lifting his eyebrows, Leonard coughed out a laugh. "Just like that?" He couldn't imagine what Sheldon would have said. He couldn't imagine the two of them ignoring the fact he'd snarled and snapped at her, made her feel worthless, and then capped it all off by saying he _didn't_ believe a word of it and that was precisely the reason for his diatribe.

Sheldon's voice shook as he explained, "It's extremely difficult for me to admit I was not in control of myself last night. I didn't mean much of what I said and...and I actually felt a little guilty. It's the thought that counts, isn't that the expression?"

"Still, Sheldon..." Leonard trailed off and cleared his throat. "Do you remember what you told her?"

Sheldon turned to avoid the confrontation, believing he was forgiven. There was no need to rehash everything.

"That she puts herself on display and enjoys the heartache she feels after all those idiots she dates dump her?"

"I remember, Leonard." Sheldon snapped, surprising himself with the hostility in his voice. "It has nothing to do with your continued attempts to have steady intercourse with her. Despite your belief your feelings and opinions on things are pertinent to everyone else's lives, this is one case where I can assure you it would be prudent to _butt out._"

Leonard's mouth moved in surprise for a few long seconds before he frowned and asked quietly, "The last thing you said..."

"Leonard, I _really_ don't want to cover it all again. I remember." He waited, his chest heaving, wondering what little nugget of gold his roommate had found this time. Secretly, he was anxiously awaiting his friend's observation, knowing he didn't have the wherewithal to figure out his social faux-pas this time.

Ignoring Sheldon, Leonard cleared his throat again and croaked out, "You said she deserved _better_ than to be treated like that. It was hard to pick out among all the scathing remarks about her self-objectification, mind you, but you did it again. You slipped in a backwards compliment."

He didn't see the importance of such a trivial twist of words. Swallowing softly, he lifted an eyebrow. "And?"

"And she gave you a stuffed heart." Leonard's voice was small. "And she kissed you."

His heart pounded involuntarily at his secret being divulged, but he managed to keep a relatively cool face, squeezing his fingers together behind his back. "And?" he prompted again, borderline irritated.

"And I think she might..." Leonard threw his hands in the air. "You're clueless, you know that? One of these days someone is going to hit you upside the head with a centrifuge and tell you she loves you!"

"Two things: one, I'm not sure why that'd be necessary. I _do _have the capacity to listen to what others are saying. I'm getting better at the interpretation part. Two," he ignored the roll of Leonard's eyes, "why would a woman strike me and tell me she cares for me?"

"Why does Penny force you to submit to lasagna night when you desperately want cashew chicken and then deliver a stuffed heart to our apartment?" Leonard half-shouted, wringing his hands, pulling on the strings of his hood. "This is vital, Sheldon, so listen." He waited for Sheldon's decidedly unsettled looking blue eyes to settle on his face and took a deep breath. "You have to be careful you're not being unfair to her, Sheldon. Don't hurt her feelings. Somehow, and I don't have any idea how, I think you've gotten her to...like you."

Leonard could see the gears of Sheldon's brilliant mind turning painfully, dissecting her posture, motions, and dialogue over the past week. While more irritating and intrusive than usual, she was no different. And, he conceded, he didn't find her irritating. It was a curious thing, but he didn't find her disruptions frustrating, really. He certainly didn't find them endearing, either. He wasn't indifferent. His mind swirled trying to settle on what exactly he did feel, but he couldn't find a word for it.

"Sheldon, say something, c'mon!" Leonard's exasperation was plain. He watched Sheldon, in all his awkward social idiocy, snap out of a daze and fix Leonard with a peculiar stare.

He took a deep, quick breath. "You think Penny has started to view me as a potential romantic suitor?"

Leonard exhaled loudly, saying simultaneously, "Yes."

"And that her acceptance of my apology is evidence of this?"

Another breathless response, "Yes."

Sheldon's eyebrows lifted. "Interesting."

"No, _not_ interesting, Sheldon!" Leonard practically screeched. "She is not some experiment you can toy with! This is _Penny_ we're talking about! She's our friend, she's our neighbor!"

"Well, I'm sorry Leonard, but the situation still seems to be interesting!" Sheldon defended, opening the fridge and finding a bottle of water. "It didn't occur to me. I find the--"

"Sheldon, Penny _likes_ you." Leonard repeated, noticing this time that the lanky frame hovering over the kitchen island stuttered, lost fuel, and stalled. He mouthed uselessly, still without expression, and then looked at the bottle in front of him, pretending to read the small print on the label.

Minutes passed and he still had nothing to say. Leonard didn't budge and Sheldon was too afraid of ruthless pursuit if he tried to flee. His instant desire was to go either to his room and feign tiredness or ask for a ride to the comic book store. Neither seemed viable. So, after finishing his water and tossing the bottle into the recyclables bin, he turned, startled to find Leonard had marched up to him.

"You're...you're a real prick! You know that?"

Sheldon's eyes widened. "What now?"

"You'd be lucky to have her and you're pretending you don't even care! You're no different than those so-called 'meatheads' she dates!" Leonard inhaled wildly. "They think they're better than emotions, too, Sheldon. The terminal causality is all that separates you from the apes."

He felt a little weak. He didn't want to believe Leonard had a point, that he might even be right, but when he tried to question how he felt, his brain dismissed the notion, finding it irrelevant. Leonard stomped off and came back, voice squeaky as he read out their four names from the pillow he'd snatched from Sheldon's bed.

"Sheldon, Leonard, Raj, and Howard. She put _your_ name first. She put 'Halo' night on here, Sheldon. She...she..."

"You'll have to excuse me if I find this a little less than convincing, Leonard." He didn't wait for the short, flustered man to complain about not getting a chance to finish blustering. "I do not fulfill her established 'type.' She'd be an idiot for choosing me as a potential mate, and she is _not_ an idiot."

Leonard stabbed his finger under Sheldon's nose, quivering. "There."

"What there?" Sheldon swatted his hand away. "What are you talking about?"

"You just wait." Leonard croaked, backing down the hall with the pillow in hand, sounding watery. "Let me know when she gets here to cook."

Opening his mouth to affirm he would follow Leonard's wishes, Sheldon gave a start when his roommate's door slammed shut. He had half a mind to walk over and knock, to ask for his pillow back, but found an unusual sore spot in his stomach and he let Leonard keep it for the time being. There were more important things than his unusual new attachment to the cheap toy.

***

She knocked and waited for them to answer it for a change. Sheldon stood to let her in, looking backwards at Howard and Raj, who were huddled around Sheldon's laptop, testing out some new feature he'd downloaded recently as an addition to the Google Earth program. Just before he got to the door, which was unlocked, Leonard grabbed his arm and spun him around.

"God help me, I have no idea why I'm doing this, but here." He thrust a three-by-five card with his exceedingly messy scrawl on both sides, and shoved Sheldon toward the couch. Gripping the card, Sheldon sent a frown at Leonard, who then opened the door and smiled winningly, painfully, at Penny.

"Hey! Glad you decided to come over." He held the door and she waddled in with arms full of groceries.

She scoffed. "Please, don't think for a minute I'd renege on you guys just because Sheldon and I had a little misunderstanding."

Raj leaned and whispered in Howard's ear. Howard snorted. "Lucky for _us_ she doesn't hold grudges, you mean."

Scowling, Penny put the two bags of groceries on the island and unloaded a pile of ingredients, biting her lip. Sheldon was reading some sort of notecard to himself, lips moving softly, but not enough to give her a clue. She had squinted one eye and started toward him when Leonard cut her off with a nervous smile. "Have a minute?"

Her heart sank. She knew this had been coming. He had been able to shrug off her confession from before, and she'd seen it bugging him ever so slightly that Sheldon was acting differently to some degree, but still. She expected him to sort of let it happen until she shook her head and told him it was over. Forever.

He closed his bedroom door behind her and stood, chin in hand. He smiled at her once more and she winced.

"First let me say I'm surprisingly not mad. A little disappointed, but not mad." He started to pace, but stopped, sitting on the end of his bed with a loud sigh. "I thought I'd be angrier. But, let's face it, I'm not."

"Leonard...what?" She sat next to him heavily and gripped his arm. "Sweetie, what are you talking about?"

"You and I," he replied slowly. "It's not you, it's not me. Just...don't worry about it."

She frowned lightly and felt the guilt start to bubble up. "It's because I kissed Sheldon?"

"No, no. I would have said something already." He waved her off, wondering how much he could say without absolutely destroying Sheldon's already fragile social life. "Do you understand? I'm not mad."

"Well, I assumed that would be because it's _Sheldon."_ She smiled prettily at him, fluttering her eyelashes. "Right?"

He shook his head, tired and too calm for his own good. "No, Penny. I realized...I don't really want you. I thought I did, and I did for a while, but...not anymore."

She searched through her gut to find the heartache that usually settled low, poisoning her whole body, but it wasn't there. She felt a little twinge of guilt, sadness, and peace. It was an odd combination, and then her body flushed, thinking of Sheldon and his unwitting part in all this.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry I kissed him." She looked at her feet.

Leonard laughed. "Aw, no you're not. You'll be able to hold it over his head you were his first forever. That's a long time, even for Mr. Unraveling-the-Mysteries-of-the-Universe-with-My-Mind."

She giggled. "That's _Dr._ Unraveling-the-Mysteries-of-the-Universe-with-My-Mind."

"My apologies," Leonard laughed softly and rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. "And, that aside, I don't think you're sorry or need to be. I've done...much worse."

She hugged his arm a little tighter and kissed his cheek. "For what it's worth, Leonard, you're an amazing guy. Any girl should be happy to have you."

"I think we're quickly figuring out there are always a handful you'll never win." He lifted his eyebrows and smiled winningly at her, startling her with his genuine warmth. "Sometimes she's meant for someone else. I'm not ready to buy a cat yet."

"Good!" She stood and held her hand out. "Help me screw up dinner!"

He hung back a moment and shuffled his feet before grabbing Sheldon's pillow and holding it out to her. "Will you put it back in his room for me?"

She took the pillow and smiled thinly, looking caught, guilty again. "He gave me...a little brain."

"A brain?"

"Left it outside my door. One of those stress-relieving things, but it was a brain. And he...did something like this. I thought the contrast would be poetic, I guess." She laughed awkwardly and looked at her handiwork. "His tiniest section was 'self-awareness.' Mine's Kiki. She died when I was still in elementary school."

Leonard nodded and cleared his throat. "He's lucky someone like you is here to understand him, Penny. Lord knows sometimes _I _don't get him."

"No one does, but I'm working on it." She hugged the pillow and sent him a glittering look. "He doesn't know it, but he's making progress."

"Go touch the _crap_ out of his food." Leonard winked and she laughed, rushing into Sheldon's room to deposit the pillow on his bed and get to work. In the five extra seconds he had, Leonard nearly sprinted into the living room in time to see Sheldon tuck the card into his back pocket and sit back, staring at his whiteboard with a slight frown.

The note card in Sheldon's pocket was burning a hole in his forehead. He felt like he couldn't get the words from his mind. They were the most important social cues he felt he'd ever been given. It was imperative he remember them. He couldn't say why, but he knew he absolutely could not break Leonard's rules.

_Do not mention the fact I have my suspicions she likes you. Under no circumstances should you attempt to trick her into admitting such. Just ignore it for now. Trust me._

_If, for any reason, you have to refer to sexual intercourse in front of Penny, do not refer to it as 'coitus,' 'intercourse,' 'procreation,' or 'mating.' Acceptable terms include 'love-making' or 'sex.'_

_Attempt direct compliments occasionally. Instead of implying she has learned to correct some previous bad behavior, simply state you enjoy the (new) behavior. If you don't like a change, ignore it until the urge to voice this needless observation fades._

_Throw her a bone now and then, but still hold on to whatever it is that makes you Sheldon. Do not try to gain additional forgiveness by pretending to be sweet or caring. She'll notice and you'll scare her._

_Trust her._

The last one befuddled him, but the rest seemed like sage advice. He'd walked over to the whiteboard at some point and started to scribbled on the white space he'd erased in the middle. For a moment he panicked, wondering why he'd erased some of his work. In its place he'd written a formula that made very little sense to him scientifically.

R=P(k+h)-L

-----------

i(I+S)

Penny smiled at him as she passed through the kitchen and threw open the fridge, taking out a bottle of water. The look on her face made him realize Leonard had just called it quits. Somehow, she was glowing a little bit. She seemed to be relieved and bouncy. Leonard, too, was relaxed but a little more down-trodden than Penny. Curious. He erased the "-L" from the equation.

His befuddlement only doubled its efforts when he felt a rush of warm and tugged on the collar of his shirt and pulled his sleeves a little further up on his arms. He looked at the floor, unable to help himself from wondering what exactly he was thinking when he let himself get worked up over this meaningless moment in their apartment.

Penny clapped her hands once, jarring everyone from their respective reveries. "Anyone know how to make lasagna?"

***

Penny's eyes opened exactly fifteen seconds before her alarm went off. She planned to hit the snooze button, but when the jarring sound interrupted her mindless vigil, she simply turned it off, rolled to her feet, stuck her feet in the slippers her mother had sent her this last Christmas. She waited for the coffee to brew, poured herself a cup, didn't bother checking if she had any milk before opening her door and starting across the hall. She knocked twice, pushed open the door, and entered, waving a bleary hello to Leonard and Sheldon, both of whom were dressed and ready to start their days.

"Pull the morning shift?" Leonard asked, smiling as she nodded and accepted the milk from Sheldon. He frowned lightly as she added a touch more than usual and put it on the island, collapsing across her arms tiredly. She groaned.

"I take it you didn't sleep well," Sheldon commented, reaching over her for his bowl of oatmeal. She looked up at him, not in the mood for his misguided attempts at small talk.

"Best sleep of my life. So good it didn't want to let go."

Leonard shot her a wry grin. "What's on the agenda for the day, Penny?"

She took the first few sips of her coffee first, welcoming the first surge of adrenaline she'd feel. "Morning shift at the Cheesecake Factory, then over to Yvette's to catch up." She looked up at the ceiling and pressed her lips into a thin line. "Let's see, what's the Monday routine?"

Sheldon opened his mouth to reply but felt the sleight at the last moment and kept the contempt from his voice as he helplessly reported all the information to her. She nodded as if to say, "Just as I expected." Sitting up suddenly, she fixed Leonard with a stare. "Hey, after I'm done at Yvette's do you want to bring the guys to the theater over on the west stretch? There's a midnight showing of _The Rocky Horror Picture Show_ and I'm itching to go."

Sheldon started to shake his head, but Leonard had already agreed to go, pulling out his cell phone to alert Raj and Howard of their plans. Within minutes Penny had invited several of her friends as well. Sheldon felt very put-out for a moment, but started to enjoy the idea of an evening shut in the apartment.

He felt her looking at him before he could have known she was waiting for his response. Without looking at her, he shook his head. "I'm not interested in whatever it is you're going to see."

She frowned. "You have no idea what it's about."

"Meaning it can't be _that_ good," he quipped, pushing himself away from the island to rinse out his bowl.

She followed him to the sink, stomping silently in her padded slippers. "You haven't heard anything good about _Gone With the Wind_ either, but it's a classic. This is a cult classic, Sheldon. Widen your horizons a little. What if the...the...catalyst to your next big break is waiting in some stupid theater across town? You might see Tim Curry's fishnets and think to yourself, 'Gee, that reminds me of this Algonquin or algorithm or whatever the frack it is.'"

"I should think I wouldn't mix up a Native American tribe and the rules governing math and physics," Sheldon snorted and imagined filling out graphs using smoke signals. His smile dropped when Penny wedged herself between the sink and his body, folding her arms.

"Oh no, Miss Thing, don't think you can strong-arm me into this ridiculous joyride!"

She lifted an eyebrow. "Oh, but the term 'joyride' would indicate fun and excitement. Who'd invite Dr. Doom to an evening of pleasant camaraderie?"

Sheldon startled her with an appreciative look. "Ooh, Penny, I'm impressed with your vocabulary!" He very nearly added the second part, but, remembering the notecard in the back pocket of his pants, he buttoned his lip and swept around her, looking over his shoulder. "I'm still not going."

"Well, good! I didn't want you to!" Penny retorted and winced—an expression Leonard didn't miss. He almost had to bite his knuckle to hide his amusement. Penny, although extremely witty at times, could easily get worked up trying to stay toe-to-toe with Sheldon.

Sheldon paused in front of his laptop and got a thoughtful look on his face. Looking up briefly, he shook his head and laughed gently. "Funny, I thought for a minute I detected a note of sarcasm or distress in your voice. I suppose I'm hearing things. It's not, as far as I can tell, one of my 'on days,' so to speak."

Penny sent Leonard a look, one she hated using, but one she knew got results. It was a look begging him to reason with the skinny idiot and get him to make a concession. When Leonard failed, she always had his mother to call, though she didn't see Mrs. Cooper calling to nag her son into seeing a sex-themed cult movie at midnight on a Monday.

Sighing, Leonard walked over to Sheldon and fixed him with a pointed glare, folding his arms while Sheldon, oblivious, packed the last of his things into his messenger bag. Without looking up, Sheldon asked, "Yes?"

"C'mon, Sheldon. It'll be good for you to get out of the apartment tonight."

He made a small noise of exasperation. "In what way? You make all these claims and do nothing to back them up! By your logic, it'd be good for me to lie down in the middle of Euclid Avenue and pretend I'm a speed bump!"

"Oh, Sweetie, no one would complain if that's what you wanted to do," Penny interjected with a shit-eating grin.

Leveling a cool glare at her, he briefly lifted his hands to his temples and frowned extra hard and Penny, giggling, felt her face flush a little. She loved it when she got under his skin and she knew he loved letting her crawl in there occasionally.

"Jokes about my untimely demise aside, I'm still not going to this movie tonight. I'm working on some important research. Monopoles may be out, but there's something to be said about, oh, I dunno, _everything else in the universe._" He straightened his shoulders and looked at Penny pointedly. "Have fun!" he urged sarcastically and was halfway through taking a breath to add _Bazinga!_ when Penny rolled her eyes and took her coffee to the door. She leaned, smiling sweetly at Leonard.

"Goodbye, Leonard. I'll see you tonight. I hope you have a great day at work." She rotated, looking at the other roommate. "Sheldon, I hope you get in a horrible laboratory accident."

"Duly noted," he snapped back and watched as she smiled widely and closed the door on her way out.

Leonard shuddered, gazing back at Sheldon and his quirked eyebrow. Sensing the silent question, he simply shrugged. "I was just picturing the evil geniuses you and Penny would have."

Sheldon's jaw dropped open in indignation and irritation, but he had no time to retort as Leonard sniggered and picked up his keys. "C'mon, we're going to be late."

It struck both of them as they exited the apartment how strange it was to hear Leonard urge Sheldon to hurry or else they'd be late. Sheldon said nothing and massaged his stomach all the way to the university, not once complaining when Leonard turned on the car radio.

***

He forced himself to eat something after his brain could take no more calculations and online computer matches of chess. His brilliant mind was bored, which was to be expected. What was not expected, however, was his inability to remedy the situation. Nothing appeared to work. He kept returning to his whiteboard and staring at the equation he'd written up. The desire to erase was strong, but he could not. It was a clever riddle hidden in plain sight. He chewed over a piece of buttered toast and stared. The time was 11:45 and he was convinced he should be turning in soon, but despite his boredom, he was not tired.

The door banged open and he dropped his toast, nearly choking on the unswallowed bits in his mouth, but when he turned to see who it was, he had no choice but to spit up the mouthful into his hand and look frantically for someplace to put it and wash his hands, _quickly._

Penny put a hand on her hip, a snarl already on her lips. "Sheldon, shut up and get in the car _now."_

He didn't object, just threw the soggy mouthful of toast in the sink, rinsed his hands, and shrugged on his jacket, biting his tongue. Penny stormed over to her apartment and grabbed up her forgotten winter coat and a pair of gloves, glaring at him as he fidgeted in the hallway, looking everywhere but her.

If he thought he was fooling anyone with his aloof attitude, Penny mused, he was sorely mistaken. She was well-aware of his observational talents; her outfit had not gone unnoticed. But, as Yvette had reminded her while they caught up over Russian cuisine and French wine, one could not attend a midnight showing of _The Rocky Horror Picture Show_ without dressing up. So she'd put on traditional fishnet stockings, a garter, corset, and pumps. Yvette had painted her up like someone from a Vaudevill show and teased her hair into a frazzled nest, but it was so perfect for the evening. Her sprint from her car to the building and up the steps had been welcomed, if only to warm her up on the cold, winter night.

Hugging her coat closer to her body, she locked her door and seized Sheldon's elbow. "We're gonna be late, c'mon."

"Everyone keeps telling me I'm late today!" Sheldon panicked, trying to resist her insistent pulls but failing. "Slow down, with those shoes you're going to end up doing unplanned gymnastics and breaking your clavicle."

"And if you don't shut up, you're going to end up with a black eye. Or, worse," she tugged him harder, dropping down the steps with the confidence of a woman who knows how to work a good pair of shoes, "I'll knock you out and you'll wake up dressed like Rocky."

"I'm assuming he's the male lead," Sheldon mused.

"He's someone I think you'd find interesting at the very least. An experiment." She laughed at his offended expression as she led him to her car and unlocked the door. "Oh, I'm sorry, would you rather be the good doctor?"

"I don't like where this is going," he replied, sounding tired and wary.

At the theater, he had to concentrate on keeping his jaw clenched tightly, though the infrequent times someone truly managed to shock him, he could do nothing to control his involuntary exclamation of, "Oh good Lord!" He clung to Penny's arm as if she were his only lifeline while they weaved through the packed lobby of the building and into the nearly empty theater. Strutting to the middle row of seats, Penny held out a grand arm and grinned. Leonard, Howard, and Raj looked as uncomfortable as Sheldon felt, and so he rushed in toward them only to pause and glare around the interior suspiciously. He sat after a moment, but squirmed.

Penny leaned closed to where his head was and made a loud noise, something between a laugh and a bird's call. The reverberation was perfect—they had saved him the "acoustic sweet spot." He looked at her, an inexplicable gratitude in his eyes. Penny got the weirdest feeling he both loathed her and wanted to kiss her at the same time. The lights dimmed and dozens of scantily clad patrons started flooding in, including several of Penny's close friends. One of them, a sort of doughy man with a pierced eyebrow, was in a corset and heels as well. Sheldon bit his thumb to keep from saying anything rude about her friends.

Howard leaned over to Leonard and whispered, "By the end of the week, she'll have him balancing a beach ball on his nose and reciting the last five winners of 'America's Next Top Model.'"

"There's no shame in a little social experimentation," Leonard chuckled and settled low in his seat, risking a glance at Sheldon. From the way his jaw was tensing and relaxing, his Vulcan hearing hadn't failed him. Had Penny not handed him a container of popcorn, he might have tried to blow up both their heads. Instead he accepted her offer and silenced himself, watching with innate curiosity as the story unfolded.

He really had to stop letting Penny choose the movies.


	3. Manipulation

Author's Note: Okay, so apparently I lied about this well of long chapters soon drying up. Then again, I did re-write this chapter about SEVENTY TIMES before I was pleased with it. Blargh. But I love you, beautiful readers! BONUS: I am officially done with the nonsense that is college for the semester, and, extra bonus, classes don't resume until mid-January. Like, we're talking January 23 or something crazy like that. So, literally I'll be going insane at my apartment for the next 6-7 weeks. I'll be a writing fiend.

Reviews welcome, of course. and noww, ladeez and gentlemenn! MOAR FIC!

***

Sheldon made an unscheduled trip to the laundry room, hoping to catch Leonard there, but unsure who he'd find loitering in the stuffy room at this hour of the evening. Pausing in the doorway, he observed Penny, her head bent unnaturally to the side, chatting animatedly with someone back home, sounding at both sympathetic but unbearably perky. He listened, knowing it wasn't proper social protocol to eavesdrop, but she usually put her conversations on hold with him, directing her full attention to him in case he chose her inattentiveness as a source of irritation.

"No, it's more like...I don't know, it's thorough." Penny laughed helplessly. "It's like that guy's experiment with the chicken eggs." She paused, listening to whoever it was on the other end chattering back. "Well, the computers at work _are_ outdated, but it's not like we aren't exhausting our resources trying to get them updated. I'm telling you, it's like Aristotle's experiment in epigenesis." Sheldon's eyebrows shot up in amusement and he folded his arms, smiling gently. He waited patiently, watching her fold her scores of tiny shorts and tank tops, dropping them into her basket unceremoniously.

"Epigenesis? It's a competing idea. Instead of—look, it's not important. The point is, Aristotle took a ton of chicken eggs and cracked them open one a day for a bunch of days and noticed the baby chickens were growing every day, developing, not just getting bigger. I mean, they got bigger, obviously, but it was more than that." She opened up a second dryer and started to pull out jeans and skirts, kicking dryer-soft sheets into a pile to collect later. "We've been doing our own computer repair—my station has a Band-Aid holding together two hard drives and we're not sure which is the master or the slave."

Sheldon bit the back of his hand, hiding a grin from no one.

"Aunt Lisa, it's _really_ not important. I've just been spending a lot of time with my neighbors—they're physicists. If I don't speak the occasional word of their language, I'm seriously just eye candy." Another pause, only this time Penny tilted her head and caught her phone before it clattered to the floor. "Not eye candy, they're not that bad or anything. Dr. Doom has turned into a sort of Dr. Lukewarm recently."

He could take no more, he entered, clearing his throat, and she spun, grinning at him wryly as she tilted the phone away from her mouth. "Speak of the devil! What do you need, Sweetie?"

"Where is Leonard?"

She shrugged, kicking the dryer door shut gently as she bent for her basket. "Not sure. He came in to throw his stuff in the dryer about ten minutes ago, but he had his coat on. I think he might have left."

Downtrodden, Sheldon nodded, but found himself quite unwilling to go back to their apartment and try to pick up where he left off on his most recent article. Looking at her shyly, as if she were the one looming, blocking the door, he cleared his throat, and lifted his eyebrows in question.

She covered the mouthpiece this time. "It's my aunt from Omaha. She just moved to Reno with her daughter. They might come to visit over Christmas."

He nodded, not finding the information particularly useful or enlightening, but he stored it away nevertheless. Then, after some deliberation, and seeing she was still waiting, paying him her full attention, he cleared his throat.

"You were commenting on the Inductivist method of science earlier?"

She looked at him blankly, a confused edge coming into her expressive eyebrows until the look of understanding washed over her rather suddenly. "Oh, yeah! Aristotle!"

He nodded, feeling his face getting warm. "There really _is_ hope for you yet."

She looked at him warmly, propping her laundry basket on her hip as she grabbed his shoulder, phone still in hand, and smiled. "Aww, and you _almost_ managed to compliment me without making me seem like an imbecile. Thanks, Sheldon."

"You're not an _imbecile,"_ he argued, turning to follow her as she effortlessly slipped past him and into the hall. "Penny, please!" His tone was both pleading and condescending, something only he seemed to be able to do.

She turned, shooting him a warning glance unrelated to his faux-pas, and put the phone back up to her ear. "Yeah, I'm back. Look, I've got some lines to rehearse for an audition tomorrow and my neighbor is on a man-hunt, so I'll have to get going soon. Put Abby on so I can say goodnight."

Sheldon watched her transform from a confident, friendly woman into something completely different. It was something he'd gotten to see a handful of times—it was something he was sure Leonard had never seen, despite his intimate times with her. Her eyes softened, her lips pouted a little, and her shoulders relaxed.

"Hi, Sweetie. I'm excited for you to come see me, too! Remember to put it on your list for Santa, okay? And tell your mom, too." Penny laughed. "I promise you Santa doesn't have a budget. You have to be a good girl, that's all! And if it doesn't work out this winter, _I'll_ come see you at your new house, okay?" She nodded, sighing contentedly. "Of course I'll bring my swim suit. I can't wait to see your new pool!"

He knew without having to pry this time that she was talking to a child, and a young one at that. From the sound of it, the girl was still young without being incomprehensible over the phone, and had a very good relationship with her much older cousin. Curious, he followed her up the first flight of stairs at a respectable distance and paused, looking at her phone curiously.

"No, I'm still here. I have to go, though. My sister is calling. I'll tell her hello! Give your mom a big kiss for me, okay? Goodnight, Abby." She pressed another button, her voice totally different. "Well?"

After a few long seconds, Penny snorted. "Married? Figures. We have all the luck."

Sheldon cleared his throat and she shot him a dangerous look as she rounded the corner for the next flight of stairs.

She hung up this time, tucking her phone into her laundry basket, and looked over her shoulder at Sheldon, uninterested. "Why do you need to find Leonard? And why would I know where he is?"

"I thought he was doing laundry," Sheldon replied, his heart beating a little harder. "I followed through on my hypothesis with some experimentation."

"That's hardly an experiment—more like _observation,"_ Penny muttered derisively. "You'd have to put him in a situation similar to this and record--" she choked herself to a stop, her throat closing. It was one thing to occasionally bring up Spock or "Battlestar Galactica" with her co-workers when she rolled her eyes and told stories about her eclectic neighbors, but arguing with Sheldon Cooper on the Scientific Method? She shook her head briskly, trying to thrust the notion from her head.

He seemed happy enough with the turn of events though, smiling at her genuinely as he bounced up the steps beside her. "_Very_ good."

"Are you going to give me a chocolate now?" she asked acidly, not understanding her sudden reaction. Seeing his bewildered expression, she managed to draw up a small amount of patience and paused, facing him fully, taking a slow, calming breath. "Sorry. I'm a little stressed right now. I have an important audition tomorrow."

He resumed following after her as she turned to continue her trek upstairs. "I understand—I myself used to get nervous giving my lectures in Germany when I was conducting initial research on string theory and--"

"No, Sheldon, it's not quite the same," she cut him off, loving him to death, but not loving his inane chatter. "Though I do appreciate the sentiment."

Oblivious, Sheldon continued, "The adage of picturing the crowd in their underwear never does work, does it? I always make it worse when I do that."

She tried to picture a frazzled Sheldon presenting, at eleven years old, to a crowd of adult physicists, in German, his squeaky voice even squeakier with youth. She sniggered to herself, helplessly imagining him as an unavoidably adorable child and looked back at him, loving the puzzled look on his face as he wondered helplessly what she found so amusing.

"But, one can and should believe in an infinite number of universes with an infinite number of variations of one's own person. Somewhere out there, I'm feasibly a rock star, or Batman." He smiled proudly, watching her face melt into a helpless laugh.

"But in none of these universes do you dance." She watched his expression slowly fall flat. "You're not the only one with a memory like a steel trap." Her face threatened to expose more of his insanity if he were to prod her, but today she didn't think he looked like he was in the mood to banter. Curious.

He jerked to attention when she resumed, for the millionth time, it seemed, heading up to her apartment. "Regardless, Penny, progress made in one universe is simply evidence that I have within me the capability of being somewhat different in another universe, and in that universe--"

"Sheldon, Sweetie, what exactly are you telling me?"

He blinked, coming to yet another stop, and frowned lightly to himself. "I'm not sure."

"Well, you're not one for 'chatting up' the neighbors, so what is it?" She put the laundry basket down and put her hands on her hips, eyebrows lifting. "Sheldon?"

It didn't feel easy today, the way they usually fell to sparring. Sheldon was getting a distinctly negative _vibe_ from the whole ordeal, though he severely doubted he was adept at interpreting _vibes._ He waited a beat, looking down at his shoes, and Penny seemed to soften.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Sheldon. Really." She hugged her elbows and pinched her eyes shut. "I don't mean to be awful to you. I just, I'm feeling a little out of it. Do you want to...I dunno, do something?"

He thought of it for a moment, musing aloud, "Leonard _is _leaving for a meeting with Dr. Stephanie soon."

"Meeting, or date?"

"I don't know, nor do I care," Sheldon reported back, scratching at his elbow nervously. "I don't have any plans. It's Thursday."

"I know. Well, it's 'Anything-Can-Happen Thursday.' Let's...I dunno, play cards or something. I could do with some human interaction," she muttered and rubbed her forehead. "I've been in my head all week."

"Isn't that where you usually are?" he questioned in what he hoped was a harmless voice.

She nodded, looking wearied by the world. "Yeah, but it's nice to get out and see what everyone else is up to. What should we play?"

"Two-player card games...I suggest we stick with something chance-related. My eidetic memory frequently upsets Leonard when we try to play games." He regarded her carefully. "Do you play chess? Boggle?"

"No the chess, and as far as Boggle, not the Klingon kind. But I'm mean at Hearts. Oh, if you're worried about the challenge, I could always whoop your ass at Halo." She smiled at him with a flash of her old teasing back in her eyes.

He twitched a little, not liking she was so aware of his failure, and nodded glumly. It would have to suffice. "That would work."

"All right, great. Let me just throw these in my apartment and we can go." She turned and this time they ascended the stairs in total silence; Penny felt that nagging fear in her stomach again, but when she lost her train of thought and almost missed the top step of their landing, Sheldon put a hand on her back and gave just the slightest of pushes, bringing her crashing back to earth.

She smiled back at him self-deprecatingly and disappeared in her apartment a moment to catch her breath. When she crossed the hall to 4A, he handed her a book and mentioned she could read it for an introduction to physics, if she wanted. She agreed, regretting the fact she'd never really bothered to learn anything about his or Leonard's work, and after skimming the first few pages, sat beside him on the couch and looked blankly at the video game controller waiting for her.

"You created an account for me on your X-Box Live?"

He nodded silently and picked up his controller. "You can begin a campaign and compete to build up your levels. If we ever have a tournament online, you'd be an invaluable member."

An unsolicited compliment that he appeared to believe genuinely. She nudged him with her shoulder. "_Very_ good."

His cheeks turned a faint pink. "Thank you. Now, let's go in on four-man teams and let the others cry to their mommies."

"One set of crying nerds comin' up." She pressed the start button and he looked over at her with helpless adoration, thanking the distraction of the screen for keeping her from noticing. At least with Halo he had a legitimate, tangible reason to admire her. As frustrating as he found her natural affinity for the game, he could not dispute it.

After they had taken a commanding lead and Sheldon was at ease again, he chanced a glance over at her. "What else are you good at?"

"What?" She started mashing buttons. "What else?"

"You have skills at this game; I wonder what other hidden talents you have." He carefully chose his attack and launched himself at the opponent, sweating bullets.

"Oh, I don't even know anymore. I'm good at messing things up, letting myself get overwhelmed, working a crowd, that sort of stuff. I'll be good at finishing that book you gave me, and then I'll be even better at disappointing you with my interpretation of it."

He smiled gently. "Penny, you'll enjoy it. I know you will. I picked it out with you in mind."

"You did?" She paused the game, looking at him pointedly.

He looked at the controller in his hands, squirming a little. "Well, _yes._ I have no need for the simplistic writing myself. I just..."

The uneasiness that followed his statement made him realize he'd said something wrong again, but he looked at her, a sneaky glance, to make sure he was right. She was holding her breath, staring heatedly at the screen, her lips a thin, angry line. He sighed and put his controller down, feeling like his skin was crawling with imaginary insects. His mother called the feeling "guilt," and for the first time in his life, he was inclined to believe her. He stood up to shake the bugs out of his clothes with a quick lap around the apartment.

"Sheldon?" Penny asked, but her voice still contained a note of irritation. "Where are you going?"

He stopped halfway up the hallway. "I...to my room for a moment."

She sighed, discarding her controller as well. "What now, you lunatic? You can't go sulking whenever _you_ make a little boo-boo. If you'd just say you're sorry...I like it when you apologize. It makes you a little less...I don't know. You're _accessible_ for a change. Haughty still, but real."

He rotated on his heel, feeling very small for a change, and rubbed his arms softly. "While I normally don't like to apologize on principle since I'm rarely, if ever, wrong, it's particularly distressing to apologize to you, Penny. And so often! It's infuriating. If there's one person I care about not-offending, it'd...it'd..." He stopped, feeling like his tongue had just swelled up and filled his throat.

He knew she was going to kiss him again. Somehow, even when he made it all so terribly wrong, he always made it better with her. And when their fighting was simply an enjoyable banter, that was another thing entirely. He wanted to be pushed and feel her shoving and scratching at him. Tonight she had none of the playfulness, and it sucked his antagonistic ways right out of him. He only wanted her to enjoy his company for a change. When _that_ had changed he had no idea, but he was consciously deciding to let things _happen_ for a change.

Leonard pushed open the door and paused when Penny guiltily spun around and collected her hands behind her back in a tight bunch. "Hey, Leonard! How's Stephanie doing?"

He dropped his keys in the bowl loudly. "Uh, fine. What are _you_ two up to?"

"Halo--"

"Books--"

They looked at one another with irritation and Penny held out her hand, one finger raised, and jogged out the door Leonard had left open, returning not a minute later with a worn paperback in her hands. "Quid pro quo, Clarice."

Sheldon looked at the book and groaned softly, turning it over to get the synopsis over with. "Penny, _really."_

"No complaints, Sir. It's my understanding a _great deal_ of concessions were made." She gazed at him as if undressing him with her eyes and he squirmed helplessly, not able to tell how much of her stare was real and how much was intimidation. This was, he realized a moment too late, the only reason he was nervous. If she truly wanted him to drop his pants at that moment, he might have only hesitated for a moment. The overwhelming urge to ask Leonard to leave surfaced, but he managed to force it to go away, thinking he ought to go through his DVD collection to see if Leonard had, once again, borrowed any and forgotten to return them.

"I'm going to head in early for bed since I have an audition tomorrow." She glanced at Sheldon's red cheeks with a spry grin. "Thanks for the book, Sweetie. I hope you enjoy yours."

"I'm certain I won't," he replied dutifully and watched her leave the apartment, collapsing into his spot to see Penny had paused mid-taunt, squatted over his dead body. The prompt on the screen told him she'd been booted from the game for her betrayal. He smirked and turned off the console, opening up to the first page of _The Notebook_ with a deep breath to steel himself for the horrors within.

***

Tucked in between pages 176 and 177, Sheldon found forty dollars—two twenties—neatly pressed together. He figured she'd want the emergency money to store in another book for the time being and, knowing she would be angry if she weren't already awake for her audition, he walked quietly to her door and leaned his ear closer, trying to figure out what if she was awake. He'd prepared a note to stick to the bills in case she was already gone and was prepared to slide it under the door.

After a moment of listening to silence, he heard her hum something to herself softly and her spoon collided with her bowl loudly. She rinsed the bowl and he listened for the water to stop before knocking.

_Knock knock knock. _"Penny?"

Inside, she sighed.

_Knock knock knock. _"Penny?"

He gripped the forty dollars like a lifeline as he heard her approaching and hastened to get his last round of knocks in.

_Knock knock knock. _"Penny?"

The door swung inward and she leaned against the jamb, smiling at him as she folded her arms. Instinctively, he lifted his elbow to protect his throat. "Good morning, Sweetie. To what do I owe this pleasure?"

He brandished the two crisply folded bills. "I found these two twenty-dollar bills folded in between pages 176 and 177 of your book, which you leant me last night."

"You're that far into the book?" she asked incredulously.

"I read at a fairly fast rate, something like 18 to 20,000 words a minute, I believe it is." He blinked at her, not understanding her incredulity. "The human mind rarely needs to read all the letters, just the beginnings and ends of words—the brain fills in the gaps and guesses depending on context and genre with an astonishingly accurate frequency."

She bit her lip, smiling at him like she found him just too funny and his heart started pounding again. His breathing was shallow, he noted. He squirmed under her scrutiny, wanting to collect his robe tighter only to realize he'd left it at home. He squirmed a second time, more intensely, when he realized he was in his pajamas, standing at Penny's doorstep, holding out her forty dollars desperately.

"Come in for a second." She turned away from him and made a show of gathering a ceramic pig from her kitchen counter and presenting it to him. He entered the apartment, closing the door behind him quietly, and folded the bills, sliding them into the slot on the pig's back. She patted the horribly clichéd decoration and put it back on the kitchen counter, biting her lip again.

He thought of his cereal sitting on the counter next to her book and of how much time he was wasting standing in her apartment when he should have been preparing for work. The boys were going to be coming over that night and he didn't want to put himself in a foul mood by starting his day off poorly. She simply stared at him, though, mesmerized by his discomfort and graceful awkwardness. Shaking her head, she rounded the counter and came over to him, keeping an acceptable distance at first.

"I was thinking, Sheldon..."

He didn't like where this was going already, and could hardly keep his lips wrapped around the idea. "Oh, I'm not sure I like it when you're thinking, Penny."

She ignored him, trying to focus on the lovely things he'd said the night before. "And...maybe it would be okay with me if we dropped this whole _reciprocation_ thing. I mean, it's silly, right?"

His first thought was, _Oh, good, I can give back that horrid book!_

"Then again, I do love to watch a man suffer through _The Notebook_. It's like making the Devil pay up for betting you your soul against a fiddle of gold, isn't it?" She smirked.

He glared at her, his heart fluttering happily in his chest. His stomach was heavy, his heart was swollen, he was still breathing erratically. He didn't need to do research to know his body was responding to her exquisitely confusing mind. He balled up his hands once, twice, three times to work out the tension racing between them, but failed.

"Tell me something, though." She looked away at last, sparking Sheldon's curiosity. He watched, thinking she was perhaps less confident in this part of the conversation than the rest of it. "You aren't trying to..."

"Trying to?" he queried, trying to prompt her to finish her thought before she got cold feet and insisted she leave for her audition.

"Just tell me you aren't trying to avoid upsetting me because of our agreement." Her demand was rushed, insecure, weak. She looked up at him, totally bare to his will, and he swallowed, not wanting to disappoint her.

"No, Penny. I never...well, I never _intentionally_ try to hurt your feelings." He blinked and looked at his slippered feet. "Leslie Winkle, yes. Even Leonard occasionally, which is not proper social protocol, I know, but never you."

He heard her sigh in what he hoped was relief and looked up to verify he'd said the right thing (which happened to be the honest truth this time) and let out a little sound of surprise when she closed the space between them and hugged him around the shoulders tightly, burying her face in the soft flannel of his pajamas. His arms flew out to the sides, uncertain, awkward, afraid he would scare himself if he allowed the contact to be any more intimate. He was stiff as a board in seconds, eyes wide, trying not to smell her when she was all gussied up for her audition.

"Hugging me back right now is non-optional, Sheldon."

He obeyed, but only because she always seemed to know what she was talking about with regards to social interactions. And then he rested his head atop hers, still tense, but slowly relaxing as her warm breath washed over his neck. He remembered their kiss and his breath hitched, which Penny miraculously noticed and drew back just a fraction of an inch, her eyes hooded, sexy. He started to scramble away but met the back of her door and whimpered softly, not out of disgust or dismay, but anticipation. He felt neutral about it until her lips softly latched onto his neck. Then he was nothing but a typical male specimen in the hands of a calculating female.

When she'd left an angry red mark, she moved to his lips and he sunk down, sliding against her door until he was eye-level with her, though he'd shut his eyes instinctively when she moved her ministrations to his lips. She was wearing lip balm, but not lip gloss. He could tell because the minty taste that followed her kisses made his lips tingle and he imagined hers were, too. Peppermint—most likely Burt's Bees.

He made no motions toward her until she dragged him from his almost-squatting position by the door to her couch and made him sit. He thought again of his soggy cereal and started to sit up, mouth prepared to deliver a healthy list of reasons he should leave, but the minute she adjusted her legs around his hips and settled over him, he forgot how to speak. He simply settled two nervous, slightly trembling hands on her waist and let her shower him in peppermint kisses until he was suffocating in her smell, her touch, her everything. There was a moment he felt that odd _vibe_ again, but this time he only knew it as a twisting, roiling thing in his heavy stomach, and it only seemed to get tighter as she lavished him with all this physical contact. When she had given him enough data, he mutely returned more of the pressure against his lips, slid a hand up to brace himself on her shoulder, and met her inch-for-inch, imagining he looked no more graceful than the time he and Leonard had fallen to fisticuffs.

She made a soft noise when he finally started kissing her back. She made a louder noise when he closed his lips tightly over her upper lip and tugged experimentally. She damn near lost it when he relaxed and let them slide back a few inches further into the couch cushions and the angle let her crush her chest against his.

Penny hated the fact she did this to him. She imagined him catatonic back at the apartment, able to pull himself together by the time he got to the office with Leonard, but today, she was uncertain if this was cruel. If she was being totally honest with herself, she couldn't be sure why exactly she was kissing him today. Sure, she was glad he thought she was so important, and that he was finding ways to _say_ it finally, but this tongue thing? The way she'd shoved him to the couch and practically started to paw at him through his pajamas? This was new, and not necessarily out of her desire to help him grow as a person. Truth be told, if he didn't change an iota more, she would be satisfied. Not _happy_, but satisfied. His horizons were at least a little broader than before.

She revisited the red mark on his neck and touched it up a bit, smoothing his pajamas when she was sure she could get up and walk away without desperately wanting to jump back on his surprisingly comfortable lap. His arms remained locked, albeit loosely, around her hips.

_Just one more,_ she promised herself and delivered one last lazy kiss to his slightly reddened lips, drawing back with an audible _pop!_ just as Sheldon's eyes fell shut. He opened them not a moment later, looking perplexed, but not upset.

She looked at his watch. "Oh, _shit! _I'm gonna be late!"

He released her and she jumped up, throwing her coat on. He watched her, noting that his pulse was still pounding away loudly in his ears. He swallowed, tasting toothpaste and Burt's Bees on his lips, and stood to let himself out.

"I'll see you later tonight, Sheldon." She stood up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. "Thanks for bringing over my rainy day money."

He nodded curtly, slowly making his way over to his door. Once inside, he seated himself behind the kitchen island on a stool to eat, but ended up stirring around the soggy goop the bowl had become with little enthusiasm. He was grateful he was no longer hungry. After a few moments of squirming, trying to undo the perfect memory of Penny tightening her knees against his hips and of Penny smoothing her hands over his shoulders to his ribs, he gritted his teeth and tried to name the elements in order of their atomic weights. He didn't get far. Tossing his cereal in the sink and washing it down with lukewarm water, he noticed he was flushed and cautiously took a moment to peek at the front of his pajama bottoms.

"Oh, dear _God!_" He scurried into the bathroom ten minutes late and stayed under the cold spray of the shower an extra twenty minutes, infuriating Leonard and making them both over half an hour late to work. He sulked the whole way there.

By lunch, Leonard was truly concerned about the muted Sheldon, who didn't seem unhappy, but did seem unsettled. He drummed his fingers on his legs the entire ride to work and kept hugging his clothes tighter to his body in some places. He appeared to be trying to avoid thinking of something while that only forced him to think more intently of it. He _had _to get to the bottom of this.

Leonard closed the radiation lab door behind himself and looked both ways, feeling absolutely sure someone or something was listening and would get the word back to Sheldon. He cleared his throat, looking blankly at Howard and Raj, who had each folded their arms and started tapping their feet.

"Well?" Howard demanded, squinting at Leonard with irritation. "I have to get back to the schedule posted for the electron laser."

"No you don't." Raj replied snappily. "You want to get back to the cafeteria to watch the vendor for the Doritos machine try to get that piece of Pop-Tart you wedged in the coin slot out."

"She has beautiful legs, what can I say?" Howard smiled and Leonard waved, shushing them. He turned, peeked out into the hall, and let out a sigh when he didn't see Sheldon searching for them.

"What's he done now?" Raj asked, putting his hands on his hips softly. "Does this have anything to do with Penny?"

Howard laughed. "Raj, come on. Do you hear yourself?" He looked to Leonard for support, but saw him wincing, then shrugging. He looked nervously at the door once more, and fixed Howard with a cautious stare.

"Gentleman, as disgusting or strange as it is, they...have developed an interest in one another. I'm pretty sure they're both in denial." Leonard hugged his elbows. "Penny is a little more intuitive, impulsive. Sheldon is...Sheldon. He has no idea what he's doing, or if he's doing anything, or what he should be doing."

"Well, what should be be doing?" Howard asked, sounding horrified. "You really want to do something to help put that woman and that...thing in a relationship? What do you think that'll be like, Leonard?" Howard grabbed his heart. "What if they have _sex_ in your apartment, Leonard? Oh my God, what if Sheldon has _sex?_"

Leonard laughed and shook his head. "You guys don't understand! Last night, Penny spent_ ten minutes_ explaining to me the theory of antimatter."

"And?" Howard seemed to be on the edge of his proverbial seat, eyes wide, half-expecting but never-believing what he would hear.

Leonard laughed, but it sounded half-crazed. "She and Sheldon have come up with this book club thing. It's insane, she's reading _Antimatter_ this week. He's been forced to read _The Notebook._ When she's done with this book, he's got _The Physics of Superheroes_ and _The Andromeda Strain_ lined up for her."

"But that's not all?" Howard asked, wincing in advance, seeing Leonard's confused and distant expression.

Leonard laughed. "No! Well, it's not earth-shattering, but he hasn't written...okay, it's earth-shattering." He took a deep, steadying breath. "He hasn't written a single page for his article in almost two weeks."

Raj shook his head, staring blankly at the wall beyond Leonard as if in a trance. "What is happening to us?"

"He's just taking some Sheldon-y form of pity on her." Howard rolled his eyes, feeling a little overwhelmed nevertheless. "Didn't you say you overheard them arguing about her trip to the hospital?"

Leonard nodded, smiling privately to his shoes. "She slipped in the shower." He waited a beat for Howard's noise of approval. "Sheldon had to help dress her. He apparently...peeked at her."

Raj and Howard both made noises of utter disgust, as if the thought had never crossed their minds. Her short-shorts and tank tops were cause for notice, but to think Sheldon, who didn't seem to notice what _anyone_ was wearing? Unless that something was not gender-appropriate, but even his understanding of that seemed limited. Howard had an intense memory of seeing Columbia, the squeaky-voiced singer from _The Rocky Horror Picture Show,_ dancing at the end of the film. Her corset was a little loose, and a few times, thanks to her enthusiastic dance routine, her breast became clearly visible. He'd looked over, intent on seeing Sheldon's reaction.

He had been looking around the theater, face a little flushed, trying to figure out the architecture, or structural stability. He would glance up at the screen now and then, and then over at Penny as if wondering if it was an element of the costume one planned for. He sighed, looking up at the screen, and then Penny had patted his knee and the poor man had jumped from his skin, letting out a very loud squeak. Penny had just giggled and Sheldon had leveled a glare at her unlike anything Howard or the others had ever seen.

"Oh my _God_ he likes her!" Howard's voice escalated until he was practically shouting. "Oh my _God,_ Leonard! Does he even _know?_"

Raj interrupted before Leonard could even speak. "Jesus, do you think...no...but she must! Leonard, Penny likes him, doesn't she?" Raj clapped his hands over his mouth and then spoke around his barely parted fingers. "That's not fighting, is it? It's _foreplay!_"

"Okay, Raj, I think you need to stop. Wolowitz looks like he's about to faint." Leonard muttered and stuffed his hands deep in his pockets. "And for what it's worth, they're both in denial. Penny would probably punch any of us if we tried to convince her she was even remotely interested in Sheldon. But she'll figure it out on her own. By the time she does, I'm hoping we can help Sheldon not be so hopelessly unresponsive."

Howard suddenly got the firmness back in his legs. He straightened, looking conspiratorial as he cleared his throat. "Okay, before we make any plans, let's examine all the other possibilities. This doesn't seem all that different from what you were doing when you were interested in her, right? You were all over that ex-boyfriend, trying to do the good thing."

Blushing, Leonard nodded. "Yeah, but...I was doing it _because_ I knew the gesture meant she would notice I was interested. Can you really see Sheldon doing_ anything _for her because he wants her to be interested in him? He genuinely wants to see her feel more...confident around us. And, on a selfish note, of course, he'd love to not have to explain the most rudimentary of physics to her in order to bring up his one, real passion: science.""

"What the hell?" Raj sounded on the brink of tears almost. "What did he say? Did he tell you why he bought the book? Why he was reading that awful, romantic trash?"

"He added something to his stupid equation on his board and told me he was making 'a conscious effort to let some of his impulses run their course.'"

Howard covered his face with both hands, mirroring Raj, who was still covering his mouth, and they groaned in unison, looking at Leonard helplessly.

Swallowing, Leonard delicately began to dance around the real reason he'd dragged them away from lunch rather than hurrying to meet Sheldon at their usual table. "Even if the changes are subtle, he _is_ getting easier to live with. Even if you think this whole thing is highly disturbing, you can't say it isn't making him happier somehow. And a happy Sheldon is good for everyone, wouldn't you agree?"

"Just tell us what you want us to do!" Raj exploded, tugging on his jacket sleeves, eyes darting all over the lab.

Leonard chanced one last glance at the door to make sure their friend hadn't come looking for his missing companions. "We're going to help him win the girl."

"This is asinine!" Howard collapsed onto a lab stool and laughed uncomfortably. "What's worse, the more I think about it, the less absurd it seems! What is _happening_ to us?"

"The day I attend Sheldon's wedding is the day Howard successfully woos the woman of his dreams." Raj mumbled grumpily. "I want to be happy for him, but I can't, not right now. That's terrible, isn't it?" He hardly waited for an answer. "It's terrible."

Gathering them a little closer, Leonard shook his head, smiling encouragingly. "Look, it's not that bad. We're not matchmakers—we'd make it worse if we tried. Let's just agree not to let him crash and burn. Let's agree to gently guide him, okay? Eventually he'll figure it out."

In the interminable silence that followed, Leonard imagined what was running through their frazzled minds. Finally, with a sigh that said he was somehow, as Leonard had been, proud of their socially-challenged friend, Howard nodded and mumbled, "I'm in." Raj followed and patted Howard on the shoulder. They looked at Leonard and he sighed, feeling a little more optimistic about the whole thing. The door behind them burst open and they all spun, eyes widening at Sheldon's less-than-impressed stare.

"Am I missing something?"

Leonard stepped forward a little and smiled, playing with his fingertips, rolling to the outsides of his sneakers. "Just talking about..."

"A Christmas party." Howard suddenly interjected, biting his thumb in horror. _Of all the idiotic things to say!_

Sheldon lifted an eyebrow. "A party."

"Penny's friend Yvette was going to throw one, but she's going to be out of town that weekend and Penny's feeling a little homesick." Raj tried valiantly to save the effort, making all three of them wince.

Shaking his head, Sheldon simply held the door for the three of them as they filed out. "I hope you weren't planning on using _our_ apartment, Leonard. Do I need to remind you of our roommate agreement?"

"No, Sheldon." Leonard sighed and then perked a little. "But we do have more room for people, and Penny was really looking forward to watching _Miracle on 34__th__ Street_ with good surround sound."

The door swung shut a little and Sheldon looked thoughtful as he fiddled with his watch absently. "Hmm. We _do_ have superior sound quality. Maybe we could reach a compromise?"

"Yeah, she'd probably go for _Santa Claus Conquers the Martians_," Howard replied sarcastically, but Sheldon's eyes lit up. They looked at one another incredulously, as if asking how they could have possibly made things any worse for themselves. As if to answer the unspoken question, Raj helplessly blurted, "Mistletoe!"

Leonard bit back a vicious curse word as Sheldon looked at them all as if they'd lost their minds and shook his head, leading them into the cafeteria where furtive glances followed them all the way to their usual table. Unable to resist poking fun, Leslie Winkle slowed as she passed the table.

"Aren't you behind on something?"

Sheldon looked at her, baffled. "I'm sorry, do I have a spare moment for a cavewoman like you right now? I'm _busy._"

His wit was notoriously poor when faced with his self-described nemesis, but today it wasn't a half-bad attempt. Leslie simply called him a dumbass before walking away.

"So, Sheldon, how's the book club going?" Howard asked, trying not to look too smug.

Looking out of his lunch with a bit of a shit-eating grin, he glanced at Leonard. "Why don't you tell them what Penny's learned?"

"Oh, trust me, I did. They want to know about _your_ half of things, I'm sure."

Nodding a little, Sheldon produced a worn copy of _The Notebook_ and tapped the top of the pages, indicating his bookmarked page, which was a handful of chapters from the end. "It's awful, but I see why Penny likes it."

Raj winced. "Dude, can you just once pretend you think she's not an idiot?"

"She's _not_ an idiot!" Sheldon seemed scandalized at the very idea. "I mean, even Penny says the book isn't terribly well-_written._ It's the plot that intrigues her. And, I suppose, on some level it is interesting. But, as I warned her, it's not up my alley." He dropped the paperback to the table loudly. "I'll suffer through these pages gladly. It's worth it to hear her telling Leonard a thing or two about physics. To think, if I had the resources and time, I could have her fighting for _your_ job!"

Unable to take the smugness, the utter obliviousness, Leonard cleared his throat. "Did you go over to her apartment this morning to talk to her about something?"

Sheldon's face pinked a little and he gathered his layered shirts a little closer to his neck, shaking his head. His eye twitched very briefly, but he took a steadying breath and resumed preparing his meal on his tray, ignoring Howard's fixed stare. Beneath the table, Howard typed a frantic message to Raj and Leonard. Desperate for speed, he had selected a group from his stored contacts and sent the message in a hurry. He waited for them to receive it, trying to stare into his plate as inconspicuously as possible.

Leonard grasped his phone and flipped it open a crack, reading the message from Wolowitz quickly.

_Massive hickey on Sheldon's neck...maybe no speaking was necessary?_

After a few moments, Howard fell his phone vibrate and peeked at it under the table.

_Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe one is not supposed to send a text to the person who is in fact the subject of said message._ Coughing in surprise, Howard looked up and saw Sheldon had fixed him, once again, with a level, hateful stare. Still, it was nowhere near the power he reserved for the blonde who lived across the hall.


	4. Discussion

Penny showed up early for Halo night with a crocheted bag full of knitting supplies and cheerily mentioned she was finishing up a pair of scarves she was sending home for her sister to put in a charity collection bin. "There are a lot of families who need warm clothes this time of year back in Omaha," she explained when she pulled out a pair of bamboo knitting needles and unfurled a long, striped scarf. Sheldon had watched her curiously for the first ten minutes, then joined her on the couch, and when Leonard came back from the bathroom, she was guiding his hands along the yarn and explaining how she didn't employ many fancy tactics these days.

"I used to make ribbons and twists. All sorts of details." She guided his fingers over the needle tips and smiled. "Just straight knit now—it goes much quicker. I make about twenty a season when I can—no time for frills."

Sheldon ran his fingers over the length of the scarf. "It's _perfect._ How tightly do I pull? Did I make a mistake?"

"You're doing fine. And it's all right if there are mistakes. I can go back and sew them closed." She watched as his pace picked up with the compliment and sat back, proud to have taught _him_ something for a change. She hardly noticed Leonard.

Sheldon's voice was quiet. "I bet you don't make mistakes anymore, do you?"

"Sure I do. I get distracted sometimes and drop a stitch, or change colors a row too early." She smoothed her hands over the scarf draped over his knee. "But it's really nice. Meditation, almost. And when I go home, I always see someone wearing one. Usually one of my cousins snags one, but I love that, too."

"Do you ever think it's a colossal waste of time?"

Leonard winced, expecting her to be angry, but sighed in relief when she pursed her lips and refused to let her ire take over. "_No_." She dragged the word out and smiled when Sheldon paused mid-stitch and looked up, sensing he said something wrong.

He cleared his throat. "I sometimes find myself wondering if I'm wasting my time doing a lot of things I enjoy."

"But it's not time wasted when you enjoy it." Penny asserted softly, finally noticing Leonard. She smiled and pointed at Sheldon's busywork, clearly amused. Leonard smiled back, truly tickled by the image.

The situation averted, Sheldon finished the row and held out the nearly-finished work and surveyed the progress he'd made. Penny seemed to trace her eyes over it carefully and bit her lip, reaching for it to hide it away. It could wait.

"Oh, _damn._" Sheldon lifted it closer to his face, his expression falling flat. "There were twenty before? There are eighteen now!"

"I'll find them and sew them shut, it's fine," she promised. "My cousin Jack would have probably taken this one anyway. He has a new coat and needs new gloves, hat, all that."

"My error is more out of clumsiness than ineptitude," Sheldon added, looking at Penny hopefully. She nodded, grinning, and looked pointedly at the game controller resting on the table. Sheldon shoved the needles into her hands, folding his arms, and she let out a beautiful, gloating laugh. As she passed behind him, walking from the couch to the kitchen without getting between him and the television, she let her fingers drift over him, trying to feel like a spider or ghost tickling across his shoulders. He ignored her, but Leonard knows it's not a typical reaction. As if to test his hypothesis, he joined Sheldon on the couch and felt his knee bump into part of his roommate's leg and waited.

"You're in Penny's spot." Sheldon stood up and walked toward the kitchen. "I suggest you vacate as soon as she returns."

"For you, or for her?" Leonard helplessly quipped.

As if answering the question herself, Penny leaned out from the open fridge. "Hey, Sheldon, do _you_ need a scarf? I have extra yarn and it only takes me a few days to finish one."

Deliberating a moment, Sheldon thought of his scarf. It was adequately warm and soft. The yarn Penny was working with was neither warmer nor softer, and yet he nodded the affirmative and stopped short when Penny squeezed his forearm as she floated past him and into the living room again. He watched her walk away, curiously interested in finding more of her mindless hobbies. He had half a mind to make a note of it in a journal of some kind, but refrained.

She sat down in the middle of the couch and stretched a little, feeling more at ease than she usually did while visiting their apartment. The only discomfort she felt was when Sheldon, in his infinitely detached way, sent her a look that said he'd absolutely _not_ forgotten their unexpected makeout session in her apartment.

Sheldon sat beside her delicately, but Leonard noticed it was more of Sheldon's curious natural grace than anything else. His knee and hers bumped and neither did much of anything about it. Penny started to tell a story about work and Sheldon, though looking at her as if bored, did not interrupt. He asked a question at the end, related to her story, and when she dismissed the answer as unimportant, he began to tell her about the amino acid strain he'd constructed out of jellybeans during a particularly boring, mandatory lecture he'd attended in Germany.

She snorted at the end of his story, which he'd ended with a tired, snappy diatribe in German. Leonard felt the palpable tension in the air and watched as Penny scraped her eyes over the inside of the apartment.

"Who is it that has all those graphic novels?"

"Which universe?" Sheldon asked, not looking up from his dinner. "DC, Marvel?"

"I'm looking for the original detective of the Detective Comics world, I suppose. He's the shadow of the night, an ordinary man pushed to extraordinary measures." Her voice dropped into a gruff, almost sexy register. "_I'm Batman._"

Sheldon cleared his throat, but his voice was lower than usual, too. "That would be me. I can get you started with some of the more famous—that should be sufficient for your interests."

Penny nodded, looking pleased with herself. "Great. Thanks, Sheldon."

It was that moment, as he leaned over, a small smile on his face, pleased to have done something right again, she noticed his shirt pull a little and reveal a fading red mark on his neck. Every time she saw it, she kicked herself a little. She was glad, on days like these, Leonard could be so oblivious.

And yet, Sheldon seemed to allow her moments of insanity, just as she allowed his. Only, and she could only wonder about that brilliant mind of his, she was less allowing his insanity, and more embracing it. It boggled the mind to think Sheldon Cooper, _homo novus,_ was actually enjoying her lapses of judgment and silently encouraging her to continue.

Leonard smiled gently at the pair of them before silently taking his keys from the bowl by the door and slipping outside, zipping his jacket. _Experiment No. 001._ He passed Howard and Raj on the stairs, nodding curtly to the pair of them as he descended.

Howard entered the apartment first, peeking around the corner, and spun back around, looking pointedly at Raj. "Nothing too weird yet. Did you bring the keyboard up?"

"Are you on crack?" Raj puffed, juggling the enormous keyboard they'd borrowed from a friend. "This things weighs like a ton! Didn't you _hear_ me bringing it up?"

"Right, sorry." Howard smiled painfully and pushed open the door. "Greetings, friends!"

Penny looked over and her face split open into a confused but unforced smile. "What's that, Raj?"

He laid it gently on the ground in front of the TV grandly, letting it speak for itself. Penny made a noise and scooted off the couch, waiting patiently as Howard plugged it in and Raj turned it on. He played some chords, not too perfectly, Sheldon noted, and let Penny at it. She started to play the familiar, rudimentary notes to "Heart and Soul," which made Sheldon roll his eyes dramatically as he looked at his watch grumpily.

"Need I remind you all that Halo Night begins in five minutes?"

"Relax, Leonard's not even here yet."

"He's here!" Sheldon protested loudly. "He just...went to his room, I think."

Howard lifted his phone and shook it at Sheldon, eyes still on the keyboard. "Raj and I forgot to stop for the food, so he went to grab it."

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Sheldon folded his arms and rubbed his face tiredly before growling softly and sliding down next to Penny, kneeling on the floor beside her.

He wordlessly found the background chords for her little, childish ditty and hammed it up, making it sound like a big-band swing part written for the piano somehow. She giggled, almost losing rhythm, and spread her fingers out, trying to play in intervals, but not understanding the art of staying in the correct key. Instead, she stopped and laughed, looking over at Sheldon's watch. "We could take five minutes out of game-time while we wait for Leonard and play with the keyboard a little more."

Raj sent Howard a hard look and swallowed. When Sheldon finally glanced up from the keys and stopped playing, his expression was warm. He seemed to be pleased with what she was suggesting, that they change routine by substitution—one of his established alternatives. He felt almost at ease disregarding the norm. While he really could have cared less if they screwed around with the cheap keyboard for a moment longer, he didn't want to have Raj and Penny team up against him and Wolowitz. It was a guaranteed failure.

Her lips twitched. "Chicken."

"It wasn't _me_ who suggested we wait for Leonard. It seems to imply you're afraid of me, Penny. Not the other way around."

"Mm, but history seems to indicate you _should _be afraid of me." She shot him a smile full of teeth and he almost reached to tug her hair as a warning, but knew he probably misunderstood that social interaction, too. Sighing instead, he stretched his fingers and began to play what he remembered of _Für Elise._

"The list of things you _can't_ do just keeps getting shorter," Penny grumped as the rest of the song came to him and it became more fluid, more musical.

Pleased with her irritation somehow, Sheldon smiled at her, and Howard found it a thousand times more terrifying than his famed 'Kill Batman' smile simply because it was effortless, genuine, and warm. It was a smile that reached his eyes and didn't warp his other features, one that made him look twelve years old, which was probably the last time he truly smiled like this.

"Meanwhile, the list of things you _can_ do is growing exponentially." He gestured at the keys while his left hand did all the work. "You can play some songs, I see. And knit scarves, and beat me at Halo. I keep saying it, but there really _is_ hope for you yet, Penny."

She grinned over at Raj and Howard, unable to help it. While it was a little insulting to have her list of abilities reduced to such inane, useless tasks, she had to take it through a specially designed "Sheldon-Filter." If it wasn't aimed to humiliate or belittle, she would take it as a mild compliment. When he came right out and _said_ the compliment, then it was even better. It was progress, and it made Sheldon appear at ease.

Howard smiled back at her politely, which she incorrectly interpreted as his disbelief or indifference. Clearing her throat, Penny turned back toward Sheldon, who was still touching the keys with practiced fingertips, a little of the smile leftover on his cheeks. She found a small reservoir of courage, not her typical assertive courage, but a long-term, three-sheets-to-the-wind kind of courage. And so she leaned and kissed him rather wetly on the cheek, giggling to herself when he first turned a little pink and then reached up, scrubbing at his cheek with his sleeve.

Glowering at her, Sheldon leaned away from the keys and took a slow, even breath. He didn't think to look over to see what Raj and Howard were thinking. Instead, he sneaked a glance at Penny, who had switched the keyboard into a new mode, where each key made a sound effect rather than a pitch. Delighted, she made a chorus of grunts, shouts, and screams. Water rippling, horses galloping, which she liked immensely, and frogs croaking filled the apartment.

Between the kiss and the fact Halo Night was steadily being pushed back, Sheldon began to get antsy. The way Leonard had been conditioned to do things exactly as his mother (and later, his equally fussy roommate) wanted them done meant Sheldon very rarely got close to his melting point. Penny had seen _Rain Man_ and wondered if the eclectic scientist had it in him to curl into a small ball and scream, to cry until he got his way. It was his safety net—she assumed he'd had very little control over his life as a child, but even then it seemed he'd been fussy, particular, and insistent. The stories she heard from Sheldon's mother were a great indicator, and yet Penny couldn't figure out exactly why she occasionally called the older woman all the way in Texas. She told herself it was because her own mother only nagged her to give up and return to Nebraska at the first opportunity, and that she could easily hang up on Mary without guilt or repercussion. She never did, even when Mary Cooper started thumping her Bible and thanking Jesus Penny was there to reel in Sheldon when he went "all prima-donna like he's the only genius the world's ever gonna get."

Penny first noticed Sheldon teetering close to oblivion when he started pacing by the window, watching for Leonard's car. The minutes dragged on for her; to Sheldon, they flew by. Before he knew it, it was 8:30 and he had yet to throw a single plasma grenade. He started to grind his teeth and fidget with his watch, his shirt sleeves, to worry the belt loop on his slacks. Penny guided him quietly to his seat on the couch, his usual spot, and sat beside him, rubbing his arm encouragingly, promising him Leonard was just running a little late, and if he really wanted, she would fill in for him so they could get started.

"Every Wednesday we have spent at this apartment, Leonard has either given adequate notice of his absence, or attended Halo Night. Penny, _every Wednesday_--"

"I know, Sweetie," she interrupted, putting her palm on his cheek, tilting his face to look at her. "He'll be here. You can skip your shower tonight, go to sleep on time, and wake up a little early, take an extra-thorough shower in the morning."

"That _hardly_ helps—no!" Sheldon looked at her as if she were completely missing the point, and she was. "You want me to further go out of my way?"

"You don't _ever_ go out of your way!" she protested loudly. "Most people bend over backwards for your needs and we hardly get a thank-you for our trouble!"

Sheldon's face indicated he was going to fight this one to the death. He inhaled sharply, his mouth forming the shape of a tirade-in-progress, one that would leave Penny in tears, perhaps. She steeled herself against the onslaught of reasons why the rest of the human race ought to cater to his will, and not the other way around, Spock be _damned._

"Well, thank you!" Sheldon finally spoke, the tone of his voice sounding completely out of character for the sentiment he expressed. He looked away from her, cheek still in her palm, and felt his face start to twitch softly.

Penny ran her thumb over his cheek softly, feeling the start of stubble, though it was largely invisible still. He was _terrified._ And embarrassed to be so terrified of something he knew literally every other person on the planet to think insignificant. He tried to shrug it off, but before he could pretend he had done so, he had to fool himself. So he took several deep breaths and focused on Penny's hand on his cheek, soothing him. He imagined a plate of peach cobbler, theorems he hadn't needed to remember since high school, and the reliable comfort of knowing at 9:30 he would go into the bathroom, shower, and get ready for bed. Slowly, he calmed until he could open his eyes again.

Howard swallowed loudly when Penny sat back a little to see if Sheldon was about to explode. "You okay there, Dork-zilla?"

Penny turned to give him a glare fit to flay him alive, but relaxed when Sheldon sat up a little and put his hands on his knees, fixing Howard with a look of mild irritation. "Of course. Shall we start so I'm not late for the rest of my evening?"

After a few moments adjusting herself on the couch, handing out controllers and changing the settings so they could do battle on randomly assigned teams, she noticed Raj staring at her. Keeping an eye on him as carefully as possible, Penny noted their entire team had been dropped in a live game somewhere on a map, fighting against four people from who-knew-where.

When Leonard finally came back into the apartment, looking a little peeved despite this being part of the plan, he gave pause to see Penny giving Howard a playful noogie while Sheldon, his jaw tight, mashed buttons on his controller. Fighting the urge to smile, Leonard put on an apologetic face and held out the plastic bag with their dinners in it.

"Sorry, everyone. Traffic was awful—I thought for a minute it'd started to _snow._ Just rain, false alarm."

"I miss the snow," Penny mentioned in a curiously soft voice as Howard smoothed his hair. "I would make a huge fort every year from the pile the snow plow made on the corner of my driveway. It was big enough I could hollow it out and slide in and out. Big enough for me and a few friends. We'd tell secrets for _hours._"

"Are you going home this winter at all?" Leonard asked as she accepted a container and a set of chopsticks.

She shook her head. "Not until March, probably. That's why I'm sending the scarves. Otherwise I'd just hand-deliver them." She poked at her dinner. "Not a lot of money to spend on plane tickets right now."

"Penny, if your financial situation is preventing you from visiting your family in a time of need, remember that I have offered before and will offer again the use of our secret money stash." Sheldon heaved a sigh as if everything were so simple, and should be assumed so easily. "How much would you need?"

She shook her head. "No, Sheldon, it's not that I'm running low on money, it's that I know I have to spend it on rent and other stuff. It's Christmastime—I can't just buy myself a ticket home. I have gifts to buy and ship, and decorations for my apartment."

"And we're having a party," Sheldon frowned. "Apparently."

She laughed. "Good one, Sweetie."

"No, it's true." Leonard rubbed the side of his neck cautiously. "Because...well, Sheldon ruined it, but because we know you're a little homesick. I know it doesn't necessarily solve the homesick part, but at least you'll be surrounded with your typical, nerdy crowd plus whoever you might want to invite, right?"

Sheldon _knew_ she was going to kiss Leonard's cheek for thinking of it. The touched look on her face was one he knew all too well; his memory had inextricably tied that expression to the motion of her kissing him. He braced himself for the feeling of the knot in his stomach tightening until he was certain it would break. Just the _thought_ of letting her near him again after she so clearly gave her touch away as if it were nothing...

He paused the game and took his dinner from the bag, going through the motions of eating it robotically. He listened to her thanking Leonard profusely, and her thanking _him_ for allowing strangers into their apartment so she wouldn't feel so sad around Christmastime. It was 9:15 when he stood and excused himself early for his shower.

Sheldon had tried, ever since moving to California, to have sanctuaries—places he could reasonably insist no one bother him. The bathroom, his bedroom, and his office at work were the three places he could guarantee himself unadulterated thinking time. Tonight, when he slipped from the bathroom to his bedroom, he heard Penny knock softly.

He didn't think to tell her she wouldn't be allowed inside; she knew better than to ask. When he opened the door to listen to her, she gave him a thin, slightly worried smile and held up a paperback, much like the first. "You done with your homework?"

He sighed, torn between lying and admitting he was ready for his second "assignment." Picking the middle ground, he stood up a little straighter and looked above her head, staring at the hall behind her. "Yes, but I think it'd be in our best interests to make sure we're on the same page, so to speak. I'll wait until you finish your book, and then we can discuss both before moving on."

"Actually, I just finished reading this a few days ago—it's only a short story in the middle, here." She pointed at the dog-eared pages, ignoring his wince. "I'm sure you've already read it, actually. It's by Thomas Pynchon."

He had stopped reading for pleasure, fictionally anyway, when he started teaching. His curiosity piqued by an author's name he'd heard before, though never read, he took the book, flipped to the middle where she'd marked the beginning of the story, and blinked at the title.

"'Entropy.'"

"You said my apartment was in a state of entropy once, remember? I had to look it up. Then I had to look it up in a children's dictionary." She smiled cheekily at him and he felt the knot in his stomach return, tightening again. If he could untie it and move on, it would be better, but without a cause or correlation he had nothing to do. So, he suffered, hand massaging his stomach as he read through the first few paragraphs.

Penny took a step back. "I think you'll like it, _if_ you don't read it literally. And, so we're still 'on the same page,' so to speak," she smirked at his mild glare, "you can explain it to me. No reflection or questions. You'll get it better than I do, I'm sure."

He nodded, effectively humbled somehow, and closed the book, wanting desperately to clear his throat and dismiss her. Instead he backed up and sat on his bed, fishing through a low-set bookcase for one of the more famous graphic novels in his _Batman_ collection. After pulling out _The Killing Joke,_ he held it out to her, wordless invitation in his eyes.

"Danger, danger!" Penny couldn't resist screeching as she took her first steps inside and Sheldon snatched the hardcover book back; he had half a mind to give her a strike for mockery, but he had invited it upon himself. So, when her giggled finally dissipated, he held it out again and she took it, biting her lip as their fingers brushed over one another's.

Leonard's rules raced through his head. He struggled, but found no additional help in the short list. Gripping the beaten paperback, clearly a used piece snatched up at a garage sale or flea market, he swallowed silently and frowned gently at the wall beside the door.

"All right, I'm going, I'm going." Penny moved toward the door. "G'night, Sheldon. Sweet dreams."

"I rarely remember my dreams—and when I do, I guarantee they are _never_ sweet. I believe the last dream I had--" he stopped short, remembering first his nightmare about the time machine, and then the last one, where Penny had made a grand appearance, silent and beautiful.

She blinked in disbelief at his sudden loss for words. "You're a weird cookie, Sheldon Cooper."

He made a noise as if he were going to correct her, but, baffled, could not complete _that_ thought either.

Penny's breathing was short. She made an effort to even it out, her fingers tracing the edge of the smooth, pristine graphic novel he'd lent her from his personal collection. This meant no eating, drinking, or nail polishing while reading. No baths or multitasking. She would have to sit down one nightwhen _Antimatter_ was just too much for her and peruse the pictures, speech bubbles, and "story-arc" with thoughtful focus. And he would pick her brain for, she anticipated, well over an hour.

Sheldon closed his mouth and looked at his folded hands silently before looking up at her, a confused light flashing through his eerie blue eyes. "Are you going to kiss me again?"

Taken aback, she laughed gently and gripped the book a little tighter. "You mean...ever?"

He hadn't considered the timeline he'd been questioning—it was the action he was most concerned with. Deciding forever _was_ the appropriate constraint, then, he nodded, undoing her dog-ears and memorizing the page number the short story began on.

Squirming a little, she shrugged and coughed gently. "I'm sorry, Sheldon. I must have...I should have known you wouldn't--"

"I haven't said a word about my inclinations toward it. I just wonder if...it's something I should continue to expect." He paused. "Or, rather, if it's something I should now prepare myself for."

Blushing, Penny took a brief look at their developing _history._ They had shared a number of kisses now—she didn't try to count the individual kisses in her apartment when she'd all but manhandled him into an impromptu makeout session. It made no sense to her. She, being much less anal-retentive than Sheldon, hadn't bothered to have a freak-out over the entire ordeal, but faced with his puzzled, less-than-comfortable expression, she had no choice but to analyze herself. And, despite her much more apparent skills in lying, she chose to be honest.

"Yeah, I guess you should."

He nodded, looking resigned. "I should have expected so much."

"Honey, you wouldn't be able to predict something like that if I hit you over the head with a pillowcase full of soap." She rolled her eyes and marched over to him. "With this sort of stuff, you'll find it's much easier not to predict, experiment, and record your observations. You'll end up thinking about silly stuff and getting hurt. The last thing I wanted when I kissed you was to plant another little neurosis-seed."

"What _did_ you want?"

She blushed again and shrugged. "I wanted to kiss you."

Nodding again, he put the book on his nightstand. "My research indicates that would mean you find me...interesting."

She laughed a real laugh. "I don't think there's a person alive who wouldn't call you 'interesting,' Sweetie."

He snorted, his ego getting the better of him. "Obviously."

Sighing gently, Penny thinned her lips and Sheldon's eyes slid to them helplessly, wondering a great many things without thinking of a single study that could help him. "G'night, Sheldon."

He made a sound of protest and clapped his hands to his cheeks a moment later, feeling for the first time like he was literally insane. Not just particular, not just suffering in a world of idiots, but utterly insane. And his mother, as he frequently reminded his friends, had had him tested. Not once, but twice. He was confident, scientifically, he was sane. Then again, when Penny had first met him, she had said he was one of those "beautiful mind guys" and he had thought of John Nash, wondered, and then dismissed the notion. It crept back in, but he knew Howard and Leonard would tell him to accept the comparison because in the movie, he managed to marry Jennifer Connelly, and that, apparently, was some huge accomplishment. Personally, Sheldon found it took away from the inherent mathematical value of the film and Nash's Game Theory of Economics.

Penny had paused in the doorway of his room, looking like she was trying to escape, like she desperately wanted to, but that somehow a larger portion of her wanted to stay right where she was. Like she wanted him to whisper he didn't feel well so she could creep back over, sit on the bed next to him, and sing 'Soft Kitty' until his eyelids drooped and he asked her to leave.

Clinging to her last memory of Ramona and all the idiocy that had surrounded that poor girl's duration at 4A, Penny swallowed. Ramona had accused her of being in love with Sheldon, and at that exact moment in her life, she hadn't even thought about it when she shook her head and wondered if Dr. Whack-a-doodle had found his "mate." It had literally made her feel sick and uneasy to see them together, but only because she knew it was not a romantic relationship at all, and _that_ had made her sad. Sheldon seemed happier with Ramona than with anyone else Penny knew, and it was a completely inhuman relationship. Other than taking care of his body and all the factors she could control to help his brain work at optimum levels, she was an ego-machine and physicist. Ramona, no doubt, would have made an excellent nurse for Sheldon's famous case of the sniffles.

It was this that prompted Penny to tighten her fists and turn around, looking at Sheldon's embarrassed expression as he lowered his hands from his cheeks, gritting his teeth, about to go into a twitch-fit. She had spent almost ten minutes tonight just rubbing his arm, trying to get him to relax long enough to take a real breath of air. For a moment on the couch, she thought he was going to faint, but then he'd drawn strength from somewhere (she liked to think a tiny part of it came from her encouragement) and managed to get through the evening without completely losing it.

"What's wrong?" she demanded, seeing Sheldon's conflicted face. It was a face that said either he was going to try to lie, or was keeping a secret.

He shook his head. "No."

"No?"

"No!"

Frustrated, Penny tossed her hands in the air, nearly flinging his book into the ceiling. "Good _night,_ Sheldon!"

"Penny, wait!" He jumped up, surprising himself with the nimble hop, but shut off that tiny, self-conscious part of his brain, wedged in there with his self-awareness and social graces. But, it might have an enormous pay-off, and he could at least sleep easier tonight if she responded well to him.

She took the single step back into his room and pushed his door mostly closed, not wanting to alert Leonard that his roommate was having another spaz-attack, and she saw Sheldon flitting around like a nervous hummingbird, closing in on her as his limbs settled and his eyes slowed their search of her face and locked on her lips. Penny took a sudden, hitching breath, backing away on some basic instinct, but desperately wanting him to follow, hoping he wouldn't over-analyze and shove her outside without something to, as her mother put it, "write home about."

Not one to disappoint, Sheldon followed until he heard her bump into the door, shutting it, and then he placed one hand on the knob, the other next to her head. She had a look of an animal pursued, caught, and about to be eaten, but it was as if she lived to prey and be preyed upon. A flash of excitement in her eyes seemed to spark a similar flash of anxiety and excitement in the pit of his stomach. It was a curious sequence of reactions, but Sheldon spent little time considering it as she tilted her head to one side, he made the opposite motion, and leaned in close, scrabbling for information.

Penny let out a soft sound as he took his sweet time figuring out the exact logistics. He infuriated her with his thoroughness, but she had no desire to rush him, knowing it would be worth the reward if she waited. So, reaching and finding his shoulders, she closed her eyes and waited, smiling when the ghost of his breath danced over her lips. Toothpaste and mouthwash; at least he was predictably clean.

His breath was too close to imagine he wouldn't be kissing her soon, and so she chanced a peek to find Sheldon millimeters from her, smiling deviously.

"Don't you say it—" she warned.

"Bazinga!"

"Sheldon!" she whined, but stopped when he nudged her quiet with a soft kiss and followed it with something that immediately made her legs go weak. She grappled with the arms separating him from her, knocked an elbow into an unlocked position, and he crushed her against the door with a bang. Her arms wove around his neck and Sheldon straightened a little, oddly liking how much smaller she was than he. She was easy to lift—easy _enough,_ anyway—and his concern he would inevitably have to put her down evaporated when she very cautiously wrapped her legs around his hips and he rested her back against the door.

_People can't be in my room. People can't be in my room. People, at large, cannot be in my room. Penny, as an individual, can be in my room._

He sighed, copying her motions whenever he particularly liked something she did, and it seemed to serve as a wonderful model. Things were going splendidly until Penny seemed to have a change of heart somehow, and she pushed at his chest, breaking away for air, her legs delicately unlinking, though Sheldon kept them parted, his body wedged too closely and tightly for her to slide back to the ground. She started to say something, but Sheldon's panic had set in and he didn't want her to leave quite yet, despite it rapidly approaching his bedtime. So, he lowered his lips to her collar bone and slid around until he _felt_ goosebumps erupt over her skin. She let out a shaky little moan that made his own flesh crawl with tingling, electric sensations, and he almost had to push her away for a moment to collect his thoughts.

"Sheldon, stop," she begged, feeling limp as he robbed her of all motor skills. It made absolutely no sense. She wanted to hide away in her room, curled around her stuffed animals—the ones Sheldon had gotten dry-cleaned after Howard and her former-friend had gotten them "sweaty"—and figure this all out. But, she reasoned when Sheldon, pausing for a moment, _reacted_ to the little twist she'd thrown in her hip, what was there to figure out? No matter how many times she'd privately thought he looked like a praying mantis, or wanted to strangle the guy, she came back. And, right now, pressed against his bedroom door and fully clothed, she thought she might _come,_ period. And that, she unsteadily admitted, needed to stop. Immediately.

"Sheldon!" She finally grew gutsy and shoved him softly, and he finally snapped to attention, his cheeks flushed, guilt coming in waves off his slightly disappointed face.

"I'm sorry, Penny, I don't know—"

"No, no, Sweetie, it's okay!" She braced herself on his shoulders as she finally wiggled her way back to solid earth, which felt like it was spinning faster than usual. She put her hand to her head, trying to settle herself, and squeezed his shoulder, looking up in surprise when he put his hand on her back to steady her, concern written briefly in his gaze.

"I'm afraid I don't understand," he finally muttered, feeling anxious still, despite the moment being effectively dissolved.

"You and I were about to...if that had gone on much longer, Sheldon, you..."

_If, for any reason, you have to refer to sexual intercourse in front of Penny, do not refer to it as 'coitus,' 'intercourse,' 'procreation,' or 'mating.' Acceptable terms include 'love-making' or 'sex.'_

Sheldon cleared his throat, making a mental side-note to thank Leonard earnestly for his forethought and real desire to help. "You and I would have," he flipped a coin mentally, figured it was statistically slightly more inclined to land heads-up and assigned that side of the coin one of the 'acceptable terms' Leonard had given him. "We would have made love?"

Penny sank against the door a few inches, her legs momentarily giving out, and she caught herself, trembling a little, before sinking to the carpet in a sitting position, screwing her eyes shut and pinching her legs together tightly. He watched intently, feeling his cheeks heating back up, but not out of embarrassment or guilt. He touched his forehead and wondered if he had a fever, but dismissed it when he saw the red flush spreading over Penny's body, making her cheeks pink and her skin hot to the touch, no doubt.

After a long moment watching her collect herself, or attempt to, she nodded at him and and raked her eyes over his ridiculous plaid pajamas, realizing she had seen him essentially in his underwear, though never all at once. The thought unnerved her a bit and she looked skyward, momentarily considering a heartfelt prayer to whatever deity was listening.

"You don't _want_ that," he reasoned, trying to find Penny's logic.

She snapped her eyes to his face. "I didn't say that. I wanted to stop because...because I didn't even know that was something _you_ thought about at all, let alone were actively pursuing! And because Leonard is in the other room, and while he took our break-up extremely well, I think the last thing he needs is his roommate bonking his ex in the apartment while he tries to watch 'Adult Swim.'" She sighed, feeling scared somehow. "And because I didn't know I wanted it, really, until a few minutes ago. So, we're stopping."

Truth be told, and Sheldon would express his surprise at such a fact later on to Leonard, Sheldon had only heard part of Penny's tirade. He had listened, his entire being focused on one answer, and when she had said "I wanted it," his mind locked on and ignored everything else. He acknowledged a desire to kiss her again, but forced it to go away, instead picking up one of the pillows on his bed and dropping it on his lap.

She looked at the pillow and snorted. "You didn't have to keep that on your bed."

He looked at the heart-shaped novelty and touched the frayed edges where she'd cut the lace off. "I know I don't _have_ to. Penny, no one _makes_ me do much of anything anymore. Except my mother."

"And if someone called and asked her Moon-Pie to come visit over Christmas?"

His eyes glazed over. "Oh, I _do_ miss Meemaw's cookies."

She laughed gently, fanning her face with her hand as the situation seemed to dissolve on its own. Sheldon, she realized with a relaxed sigh, didn't have it in him to feed the tension to a breaking point. If it were him on the floor trying to talk her out letting things go on further, she might have stood a pretty good chance of him tossing his own three sheets to the wind. But she couldn't shake it from her mind. She didn't want to hurt herself by rushing into this. The pieces were there, but with Sheldon, it hadn't felt like anything too promising. Just harmless flirting that seemed to help him recognize social conventions a little better. And then the kiss, and then the making out part in her apartment, and somewhere in there Leonard had broken up with _her._ And now Sheldon was cautiously moving toward her, metaphorically speaking.

But she had a terrible power and responsibility. She couldn't play with Sheldon the way she had accidentally played with Leonard. He was so certain and she wasn't—it hadn't been fair. If the same were true of Sheldon, she could damage the poor guy permanently. He'd never let someone this close before, and while it was flattering and honoring to be the first to come this close to his intimate side, he was dear to her, more than she thought. Wanting to cry, she bent her head into her arms and rested a moment, finally starting to calm.

"Penny?"

She looked up at him, wanting to feel miserable but finding it totally impossible. "Yeah?"

Sheldon blinked, expressionless. "You look tired. You should go before I further interrupt your sleep schedule."

"Yeah, I should." She pushed herself up from her seated position slowly, standing on shaky legs. "I'll probably see you tomorrow."

"I look forward to it."

She examined him curiously, watched him hugging her pillow to his lap, no doubt unaware or uncaring of his physiological changes. Taking a deep breath, she tried to shake thoughts of him away but could not. Even with Leonard, it was awful to admit, she'd been able to push all thoughts of him away and focus on work, or her new audition, or her family back home. Sheldon didn't function well if everyone in his life wasn't always dedicating a part of his or her life to him. So she took a moment to figure out exactly what it was Sheldon was going to need from her and knew it would be enough if she walked out tonight without another word as long as he could count on her to be there the next day. And the day after.

She swallowed. "Me too." And then she walked over to his bed, bent just far enough to reach him, and kissed him once more, feeling much more in control of herself as he eagerly returned the embrace and pulled on the strings holding the pillow together.

The seconds dragged on and Penny, pinching her lips shut, pushed herself away from him and made a noise as if she were utterly disgusted with herself. "Good _night,_ Sheldon."

She was halfway to the door when she saw Leonard look up from the TV and frown, pointing toward Sheldon's room with a question on his lips. Penny put up her hand, telling him to shut up silently, her heart fluttering like it might stop at any second. She gripped her chest painfully as she came to the door and threw it open. Just as she was about to disappear into the hall, Sheldon skidded around the corner of the hall with the forgotten Batman book in hand, his mouth tightly pressed. He seemed desperate, Leonard noted.

Penny hesitated, but crossed back over her hurried path and took the book with a meek sound of gratitude. Leonard watched their fingers brush and frowned when Penny's hand jerked away, electrocuted. She put her chin down and hurried out, the door shutting with a quiet _click_ behind her. Sheldon collapsed into the armchair near the couch, staring helplessly after her.

"What was _that?"_ Leonard asked, unable to help himself.

Shrugging helplessly, Sheldon swallowed. "As always, Penny has confused me more than I imagined possible."

"Did you give her another brilliant compliment she has yet to see?"

"To be perfectly honest, Leonard, I am almost certain I did nothing wrong this time." Not seeing the point in keeping a secret from Leonard when he was the only real help Sheldon could rely on at this point. "At least, I would like to assume Penny wouldn't kiss me and then think I've done something wrong."

Leonard's face fell just an iota. "She...kissed you? Again?"

Sheldon nodded, letting his head fall bak against the cushion of the chair. He sighed dramatically. "Yes."

"Oh, so fast?" Leonard sounded a little disappointed somehow, but then straightened as much as he could and cleared his throat gently. "And?"

Lifting an eyebrow, Sheldon waited for a clue but received none. Seeing nothing helpful on the horizon this time, he looked around the apartment aimlessly. "And it's not as unpleasant as I might have anticipated. But, for the record, an obsession with sex is still pathetic."

Nodding and waving at Sheldon's persistent narcissism, Leonard leaned and rested his elbows on his knees. "Focus, Sheldon. What was the kiss like this time?"

"It's not like I have a terribly diverse set of data to work with, Leonard," Sheldon answered, sounding irritated already. "What would you like to know?" His eyes narrowed suddenly and he squinted suspiciously. "I have a feeling like Penny might think I'm stepping over a line of some kind. I think I'll go to bed."

"Sheldon, wait!" Leonard jumped up, nervous that he would mess it up somehow if he let Sheldon try to sort it out on his own. "I don't need all the details, and if you don't _tell_ Penny we talked about it..."

As if anticipating having to lie, one of Sheldon's eye started to shut, and then flutter. "Leonard, you know I can't...not to Penny!"

A force of habit now, Leonard thrust his finger under Sheldon's nose. "There, _again._"

"I wish you'd stop that!" He swatted the hand away and huffed a little, folding his arms. "What would you need to know?"

Puffing himself up a little, preparing for a possible showdown with the frustrating man-child waiting patiently beside him, Leonard blinked furiously and adjusted his glasses. "Well, first of all...the brevity is an important factor. And if there was any tongue, and if she came back for more. Your response, sounds you both made." He tried to look hopeful and non-threatening.

To Leonard's amazement, Sheldon blushed gently and coughed into his closed fist, wrinkling his nose. "Are you certain she won't mind?"

"Again, don't _tell_ her and you'll be fine. If you want to make sure you don't screw it up and send her back to her apartment in tears every couple nights, just _listen._"

Sheldon shook his head. "I can't, Leonard. I can't lie to her."

"You're omitting the truth. And, if you want, you can tell her I asked because...because I know you need a prod in the right direction now and then. If you're not nervous, she probably won't even think to ask."

"You know, as her ex-mate, I would think you wouldn't be helping the so-called enemy." Sheldon lifted his eyebrows. "You did say I was a potential romantic suitor, didn't you?"

Leonard gritted his teeth. "No, Sheldon. It's probably that I'm insane and a little sadistic. I'm also a scientist, and I can't help but wonder exactly what is going on between you two."

"Still, you're manipulating the results, Leonard. You're attempting to take all the data—or symptoms, however you prefer to think of them—and make a certain outcome develop, are you not?" His voice was a little squeaky as he shifted his weight from foot to foot.

Sitting heavily on the couch, Leonard shook his head. "No, Sheldon. I have enough data to form a hypothesis. Now I need to confirm my hypothesis, which isn't technically in my hands. I need to make sure you do what's necessary."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, and I very well may be considering the fragility of this social endeavor, but if this concerns Penny's attraction, or lack thereof, for me, shouldn't I behave normally? To see if it's _me_ she's really interested in?"

"I'm more interested in _you,_to be honest." Leonard smiled a little. "You realize what you've been doing, don't you?"

"I'm under a social contract, Leonard--"

"Of course you don't." Leonard rubbed his eyes. "Sheldon, you're impossible."

"Once again, Leonard, I clearly exist. I can't be 'impossible.' I might be improbable, but once again, I am clearly here." He gestured at his Batman t-shirt as if that were proof were enough.

Leonard sighed and looked at his palms. "No, Sheldon, _you_ are impossible to reason with. That's what I mean." Refusing to wait for Sheldon's rebuttal, he cleared his throat and waved off Sheldon's huffing, whiny noises before speaking again. "Tell me about the kiss, okay?"

"It was wet," Sheldon answered emotionlessly. "It was difficult to breathe for a while, but I found a rhythm of sorts."

"A rhythm?" Leonard lifted his eyebrows, scooting forward. "So, it was more than one kiss. It had to be, right?"

Sheldon rolled his eyes. "Obviously."

Leonard stared past Sheldon. "You've been making out with Penny. As in, it's happened more than once."

Sheldon consulted his watch. "About ten minutes ago."

Leonard's stomach turned, but it wasn't the usual jealousy he felt when he heard of Penny's exploits. It was a mixture of nerves and his self-proclaimed revulsion at the idea of Sheldon kissing _anyone_. But, and he could see it faintly in his friend's eyes, this wasn't the same Sheldon that would have disgusted Leonard before. There was a delicate something on his face, like he was remembering the notes to _Für Elise,_or thinking of his favorite copy of _The Flash._

"And your horrible fear of germs did what about this?"

Sheldon frowned gently and his eyes turned slightly to the right, trying to remember. "I..."

"Nothing?"

"Interesting!"

Ignoring the urge to shake Sheldon senseless, Leonard took a deep, slow breath and smiling encouragingly at Sheldon's startled expression. "See? There."

"You seek to prove _I_ am attracted to Penny?" Sheldon finally seemed to catch on, having enough of the old Sheldon left in him to look wildly offended.

"Again, as far as _I'm _ concerned, you are. It's just getting you to realize it. I have a horrible feeling I'm going to have to take drastic measures. Penny is an easier sell."

"I very much doubt it," Sheldon grumped, withering a little, backing away from the fight too easily. "She's concerned her constant attention to me is making me uncomfortable, that I'm not equipped to deal with a relationship, no matter how casual or friendly it is. I'm inclined to agree with her."

Leonard replied, "Penny follows her impulses, Sheldon."

"If that were always true, I believe _my_ evening would have turned out very differently," his retort had the sounds of teasing or confusion in them, Leonard couldn't be sure which, and Sheldon stood, bidding his roommate goodnight as he silently whisked himself into his bedroom and closed the door.

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Author's Note: Peek-a-boo! Hope you totally loved the chapter. I'm totally wearified. Review and wake me from my sleep of the dead so I can get busy writing the next installment. And, I might add, muahaha!


	5. Revelation

Author's Note: Omg I love you guys! Really, the response has been amazing. This is easily becoming one of my favorite fandoms. I apologize for the shortness of this chapter, but the honeymoon had to end sometime, right? Besides, it's quality, not quantity ; ) Bon appetit!

* * *

"Sheldon, if you clear your throat one more time, I will strangle you and I didn't wash my hands after I left the bathroom this morning." Leonard looked over the tops of his glasses at his roommate, who'd been hemming and hawing for the last ten or so minutes, looking at his watch and his laundry basket alternately.

His face twitching gently, Sheldon nodded and swallowed instead, tugging on the collar of his layered shirts. "Sorry."

Lifting his eyebrows at his curiously apologetic friend, Leonard sat back a little and waited for an explanation that never came. He was over an hour late this usual laundry day, but nothing was keeping him from going to the laundry room. Leonard poured soy milk over his cereal and waited, wondering what was going to play out.

Penny let herself in, laundry basket on her hip, about ten minutes later and Sheldon picked up a week-old magazine he'd already read cover to cover and pretended to look at the editorials, his cheeks turning a light pink as Penny put down her basket and fought a yawn.

"Sorry to bug you, but I'm out of detergent. Can either of you spare some?" She gave them both a bleary-eyed smile that said she'd only just woken up.

Leonard nodded. "I have some you can have. Hang on, I'll grab it." Reluctantly, he went to his room and took his time digging in his closet for the long-forgotten bottle of detergent. From the smell of his hamper, it was about time he did laundry. But, and this was hard to do, he had to leave Penny and Sheldon to their own devices occasionally. They were developing on their own just fine, he had to remind himself. And if it wasn't going to work, it wouldn't work.

Penny dug in her laundry basket and pulled up her 'assigned reading' as well as the graphic novel he'd leant her, a flash of smugness on her face. "I slept in today because I finished both of your books last night."

"_Very_ good." Sheldon smirked and took the two books back, reaching toward the kitchen island to return her books to her. "This should be an interesting and wandering conversation."

She looked at his basket. "Oh! I figured you would have gotten started on your laundry without me. I mean, I slept in pretty late, and it wasn't like we planned on it or anything..."

"You mentioned yesterday while you were getting your mail and I was checking for _my_ mail that you were going to do laundry today." He considered her previous comments carefully and then added, however thoughtlessly, "And I wanted to wait for you."

"What about lunch?" she blurted.

He cleared his throat and suffered a glare from Leonard as he returned from his room, detergent in hand. "If you agree to watch over my clothes like a _hawk,_ I'll just run up here and make a sandwich, bring it back down."

"Okay, sure." Penny sounded unsure, unsettled. Leonard didn't know the sound, other than recognizing she was a little out of her element in some way.

Sheldon slunk around her, an unmistakable expression of self-satisfaction on his face. He disappeared out the door and Penny, resembling Sheldon's luminous pet goldfish, popped her lips noiselessly and looked over at Leonard.

"Tonight, I'll come over to your place and bring a pizza. We should probably talk."

She nodded mutely and Sheldon poked his head in, making a soft preemptive noise. "Penny?"

"I'm coming," she replied dutifully and Sheldon stood, holding the door until she passed through it and started to thump down the stairs, barefoot. Sheldon began to lecture her about the bacteria loitering on the concrete floor of the laundry room and she feigned serious interest to keep the lecture from getting longer and more idiotic. She made a show of walking on the balls of her feet to decrease the surface area of her bare skin touching the floor. Sheldon made her sit on the washer beside his while she loaded her own, explaining he would never forgive himself if she contracted a deadly virus because he let her stand on the floor barefoot while they discussed Batman. She complied, bewildered and speechless.

Meanwhile, Leonard made phone calls.

***

She returned to her apartment out of breath, her laundry neatly folded in her basket, her knees shaking. She waited to recover, to bounce back like she had before, but ever since she had come within a stone's throw of stealing Sheldon's presumed virginity, it had been a little harder to pretend she was just floating along like a butterfly on the wind.

_"It's a theory that said the slightest motion on this side of the planet can have devastating consequences on the other side. A butterfly's wings here in Pasadena could, ostensibly, cause a volcano in Japan to erupt, killing millions."_

She shook her head briskly and looked at her cell phone for the time, wincing when she realized she only had a few hours until Leonard knocked on her door, let himself in, and broke the news to her. The news she already knew but didn't have to break to herself. She laid her fingers over her heart, feeling its beat and finding its rhythm.

Reflecting on the past few weeks, she considered the butterfly that had been the impetus to his moment. She had been unable to sleep and had summoned the infinitely irritating, overwhelmingly stubborn man across the hall. The niggling thought in the back of her mind had been freed, much to Sheldon's chagrin. Not much later, she had conceded and taken a compromise, and since that moment, it had been different. The gentle flutter of her wings had upset her polar opposite and he had, in turn, squished her delicate form against the door to the laundry room and kissed her breathless. She was beginning to blush at the mere sight of doors, wondering when he might get the confidence again.

But, and she had to remind herself of this to keep from wanting to tear her hair out, he wasn't a jerk with no redeeming qualities. Not like some of the men she'd dated. In fact, in the past few days, she was more willing to admit he had some rather beautiful positive attributes. Perhaps Leonard and the others had begun to rub off on her, but she could not follow the logic. The result, her uncontrollable desire to kiss him, to touch him, to simply spend time with him when she could, did not follow from the cause. In fact, the list of possible causes was so broad she had no idea where to begin.

It might have been his recent string of genuine smiles.

It might have been his tremendous gains in social grace.

It was possible she was picking up on his peculiar, unique, _Sheldon-y_ way of caring for her.

Perhaps it was her incessant desire to push his buttons and find his tics.

She closed her eyes, wishing her usual perkiness could carry her through this moment, but she couldn't figure out how it made any sense to have optimism carry her through a moment of indecision. Even this hopelessness was interrupted by her natural ability to find the sunny side. She knew there was an answer, and she knew she'd find it. The only thing that worried Penny was the time it'd take to decipher the complicated emotions she was dealing with, and what the ultimate answer was. At a very basic level, she could at least admit to herself she didn't _want_ to love Sheldon.

He would be work. If she managed to become part of his life, there were _changes_ in store—some for the better and some for the worse, no doubt. She would probably end up losing her mind, and he his. She could already feel her sanity slipping.

_"Penny, tonight me and some of the girls are going to a new club—it just opened up! You said you wanted to go; wanna join?"_

_ "No, thanks. I've got to drive a friend to the comic book store, and then I have to pick up dinner. We're playing 'Halo' tonight and my record is flawless. Sorry!"_

A year ago, she would have assumed Sheldon was bribing her with false affection, or manipulating her for the ease of his own schedule, but recently she'd seen him more vulnerable. He seemed embarrassed when caught having a fit over a small detail that normally would have perturbed him. Sheldon had started to allow Penny to make mistakes, and he did little other than make a small face or gently correct her. He still showed horror when she showed ignorance in some realms, but her efforts to learn pleased him immensely.

Glancing at the two small holes in the scarf she'd finished yesterday, she thought of him _admiring_ her. Sheldon Cooper did not admire people without degrees in physics. He did not think about people who weren't at least within shouting distance of his position in the atmosphere.

But he _did_ speak to her. He kissed her. _He_ kissed _her._

Unconsciously ignoring any cats in boxes, Penny considered the light of passion in Sheldon's eyes. She considered how little she'd seen him working recently. Ignoring the changes in her life, she examined his recent string of pleasantries and Leonard's furtive glances. Even Howard and Raj seemed a little cautious, fascinated.

"Penny, honey?"

She looked up to see Mary Cooper poised in the doorway, holding a light sweater in her hands, her purse over her shoulder. "Mrs. Cooper?"

"Hi, dear!" She opened her arms and laughed. "Get over here and hug me, would you please?"

Standing jerkily, Penny stepped over her latest reading assignment from Sheldon (_The Physics of Superheroes_) and hugged the older woman delicately. Before she could pull away and smile, ask what had brought on the visit this time, Mary kissed her cheek and grabbed her shoulders, pulling back and smiling, close-lipped.

Penny stuttered when she remembered to speak. "Wh-what brings you to California? Sheldon's not having a freak-out, is he?"

"Well, Dr. Gablehauser and I have kept in touch since Shelley had to ask for his job back." She rolled her eyes, remembering her son's stubbornness and how it often got him into trouble. "He called me a few days ago, asking me to talk to the boy about his lack of progress with his latest paper. It's not like him to miss a due-date!"

"Oh, it's not _due_ anytime soon," Penny assured her. "He has all the time in the world to finish it. It's just, since he's proved that theorem and all, it should be coming easily. He won't be done for a while yet, but..."

Mary nodded, looking smug as she smiled. "Still, it couldn't hurt to have his muse poked a little by a visit from his mother, could it? My prayer group did all they could. The boy just doesn't recognize the Good Lord's help when it's sent to him."

Penny laughed and nodded, folding her arms gently, feeling cold in the stuffy apartment. "You _know_ he'll have a fire under his ass if there's peach cobbler and his mother goading him to get working."

"To tell you the truth, I have no idea what to say to him," Mary admitted, twisting the sweater in her hands. "I've never had to prod him into workin' on this sort of stuff. Apologies, sure. I've even had to call him to make sure he knows when it's expected of him to be at family functions—he forgets how important those things are sometimes. But this science thing? Every time I turn around, he's working."

Something in Penny made her attempt to reply, but while she searched for words, Sheldon appeared in the stairway, frowning at his watch. He looked up, a smile trying to appear on his face, but then he spotted his mother, and an immediate look of suspicion descended on him.

Seeing a peculiar look of fear and helpless attraction on Penny's face, Sheldon's mother turned and squeaked, opening her arms with a shameless affection. "Shelley! Come here and give me a hug, honey!"

"Mother," he greeted her softly and hugged her with one arm, adjusting his laundry basket gingerly. "What brings you to our apartment unannounced?"

Penny didn't hear their conversation—she saw Sheldon frowning, then blushing, then looking everywhere but his mother, and then looking over to her door and accidentally finding her eyes. His look of embarrassment almost tripled and he tugged his mother into the apartment without another word, looking like a shamed little boy. Just before the door closed, she jerked from her reverie, eyes widening, and she heard Mary Cooper shriek.

"Sheldon, is that a _hickey_ on your neck?"

_"It's different because it's like this...this nondegenerate bilinear form." She wanted to add, "Or something," but Sheldon had inhaled sharply as he checked his watch to see how much longer his clothes had to be in the dryer. After a moment Penny noticed he had clamped his first and second fingers on his wrist and was still staring at his watch; he was taking his own pulse. His breathing was labored. _

_ After he finished and released his wrist, he looked up from his watch and whispered her name softly, his mouth hanging open an extra second as if he could find no new way to say "Very good!" or "Perhaps there's hope for you yet." Penny felt her stomach folding in half, felt it tying itself in knots._

_ She slipped from her perch on the washing machine and ignored his concerned stare at her feet, a swing in her hips. She came to a rest inches from him and clasped her hands behind her back, waiting for his mouth to close. His lips finally touched as he swallowed and wiped his palms on his pants. She felt his warm hand slide over her hip softly, as if he weren't sure this was allowed, and then he bent, pasting his face to hers with an amateur grace._

_ He wrapped his arms around her tightly and turned, lifting her onto the dryers behind them, and she'd started to smile, but was unable to finish the thought when his face disappeared behind a curtain of her hair, a hot breath sending shivers radiating from her core. He fastened his lips to her neck, found her pulse point, and nipped gently, pressing closer with his entire body when she let out a shuddery sigh and combed her fingers through his hair._

_ She couldn't resist returning the favor. As soon as he paused, panting, to survey her face, to see if there was anything there to help him plan his next step, she gripped the back of his neck and jerked him closer, sucking wildly on the mark that had just barely faded to a light pink that morning. For exactly half a second she considered stopping, asking him exactly what was going through his mind, but she figured she wouldn't understand it even if he told her._

_ He made a noise of distaste, clapping a hand over her newest handiwork, and shoved her hair away, hemming at the sight of her own brilliant red mark. She cupped his face between her hands and he pulled her forward until she was barely balanced on the washer, its spin cycle just beginning. She could feel him trembling and he braced himself on the edge of the washer, eventually growing bold and slipping his hands around her back._

_ They heard the cough of the chain-smoking tenant on the second floor before they saw her. Sheldon had looked at Penny, tortured and uncertain, but drew back a few inches, still clutching her, and Penny's arms dropped to his shoulders. The woman, wiping at her lips with a handkerchief, hardly spared them a glance before shuffling past and to the stairs. They stared after her, wondering why they were so jumpy, and Penny broke from the trance first._

_ His fingers played over the clasp of her bra and a thought crossed her mind. When Sheldon let someone into his personal space, it was all the same to him. She thought of Ramona and how unromantic it had been with her. His body was his temple, but he did occasionally let others in. It was lunchtime, but she wasn't hungry. Sheldon's stomach was curiously empty, but he felt nothing more than the edge of her bra against his fingertips and her warm skin pressed against his lips, his nose, his chest._

_ He never entered another person's personal space. And yet, here he was, about to slide his hand under her bra and find his way to her front. The thought, however tempting, alerted her that something wasn't entirely right about the situation. She didn't want to be as excited as she was. She wanted to think this was as disturbing as she had when she'd seen Ramona pumicing his feet. She wanted to feel uneasy, not in total bliss._

_ The dryer buzzed again, louder this time, alerting Sheldon his clothes would be wrinkling if he didn't fetch them soon. They sprang apart, only six inches or so, and Penny felt his hands slip from under her tank top, freezing on her waist while her fingers knotted into his Green Lantern t-shirt._

_ "I have to go call my aunt. To see if she'll be in Omaha this Christmas, or if she'll be coming out here."_

_ "You said--"_

_ "I know, but...with the party you and Leonard are throwing—I have to go. I'll see you later tonight, Sheldon!" And then she'd run up the stairs and erupted into her apartment, breathless._

Leaving the memory abruptly, Penny collapsed across her bed and forced her eyes shut. "Oh, God. Oh, _God._"

***

"Penny?" Leonard tried knocking one more time before trying the door and finding it unlocked. He let himself in, put the pizza box on her coffee table, and tiptoed over to her door. She was curled around her biggest stuffed teddy bear, her mascara was a little streaky. To Leonard, she was just as beautiful as always, but tormented in her own unique way.

He sat on the side of the bed, swallowing nervously, and then jostled her shoulder gingerly. "Penny? Would you rather we do this another time?"

Gasping at her sudden wakefulness, Penny pushed herself up on her hip and caught her breath, laughing at the scare Leonard had given her. "Sorry, Leonard. I must have fallen asleep earlier...is Sheldon distracted enough with his mother in town?"

"He's elated he doesn't have to share the peach cobbler she's making with anyone, if that's what you mean." Leonard sniggered, shaking his head. "Are you hungry?"

Without thinking, Penny shook her head. "No, not really."

"You and Sheldon! If his mom weren't here making his childhood favorites, I think he'd be picking over his dinner, too. He's hardly eaten these past few days. He _tries,_ but it's not his usual feast at all." Leonard tapped his chin. "And you, Penny...you haven't been eating that much, either."

"I just haven't been hungry. I'm waiting to hear back from that audition—they didn't immediately tell me to get lost, which is encouraging."

Leonard smiled a little and nodded, rubbing his hands together. "That's great but, hey! Dinner's getting cold and I think we _really_ need to talk."

"Leonard, we're talking," Penny replied flatly. "You start with the _real_ talk whenever you want."

His head falling as he looked at his dancing fingertips. "You and Sheldon have a thing, Penny."

"Sheldon has a _thing_ with everyone."

For once, Leonard didn't think it was best to back down from her glares and firm words. "Sure, but he humiliates Kripke. He hates Leslie so much he hardly goes out of his way to _speak_ to her, let alone push her buttons. He doesn't praise anyone who isn't a world-renowned theoretical physicist. But you, Penny...he's making room for you."

"And once I'm in, it's like quicksand, right? There's no getting out?"

Inhaling slowly, Leonard sighed. "If he ever wakes up and realizes he actually has feelings for you, you'll be the only woman in his _world,_ in his _universe._ Imagine the focus he saves for his whiteboard, for his research, aimed at _you._ It's what you've wanted, Penny. It wouldn't cross his mind to think of other women. There _aren't_ other women in his life. Outside his family, you're it."

"No other data to compare," Penny mumbled.

"If you met Sheldon first, before anyone else, before Kurt, Doug, Owen, me?" Leonard asked, sounding shy suddenly. "Wouldn't you _know?_ Like you should know now?"

"If I get him to love me, he'll just hate me for it!" Penny exploded. "Anything that could possibly distract him from science. Anything!"

"If that were true, he wouldn't play 'Halo,' join us for paintball, or collect comic books." He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, linking his hands together. "Penny, all things considered, can you really say he doesn't care? That he hates you?"

"I know, but Leonard—"

"That he's even let you in should let you know that it's not a lack of data, it's a lack of useable matter for experimentation! He didn't need to try a thousand different filament types before he saw the spark with you."

"Even _I_ know that doesn't follow the Scientific Method very well," she grumped, but couldn't ignore the little flutter in her stomach. "Just get to the point, Leonard."

He scooted forward and gripped her hand between his. "Wolowitz and Koothrapalli are on board. We're going to help you break through to him."

She shook her head, pulling her hand away. "It should have already happened."

"Penny, the closest he's gotten to having a breakthrough is with my mother—we know what he thinks is going on between them isn't healthy. As much as he complains about his mother, who is over there trying to annoy him into working again while making him a pile of his favorite childhood snacks to get him _eating _again, he _loves_ her. I know you hate this psycho-babble, but it does speak volumes, Penny." He snatched up her hand again, jerking her wrist so she was forced to peer at his earnest face.

"He lets you sing to him. A cheeseburger at your workplace has become part of his routine. His attempts to teach you about physics aren't patronizing, they're practically _erotic._ It's all he knows! He doesn't even know he's trying. But we'll get him there. Think about it. Really think!"

She tried to shake her head again. But, as much as she wanted to fixate on his attachment to Leonard's mother, when it really counted, when he was at his most vulnerable, he wanted affection, not clinical detachment. And Penny, who was never good at pretending to be completely disconnected, could provide affection. She already had, and she hazarded to guess she would again, if given the chance.

When she felt the world around her starting to undulate between startling clarity and a blurry haze, she finally remembered to breathe. Bending forward, she pressed her forehead to Leonard's hands and was fiercely glad she could still rely on Leonard to be a pair of ears when she needed them, whether or not she wanted them.

"Leonard..." She sat up so suddenly she almost caught his chin with the back of her head. "I _love_ him!"

Even though this was exactly what Leonard was hoping would happen, and it'd been a little harder than he'd been anticipating, it was still a shock to hear the words spoken aloud, and with the firm confidence of Penny's certainty.

Smiling, Leonard smoothed her rumpled bed-head. "I know you do. Now, can we focus on the idiot I live with?"

Looking at her expression, he thought it was fair to say she had declared the war _junior rodeo on._


	6. Conspiracy

Author's Note: You reviewers out there, you rock my socks. You're the bee's knees. The cat's pajamas. Other time-inappropriate compliments. I love you. I would serenade you with a lovely song, but all I have is text. So, enjoy what I have to offer, lovely ones. Big hearts and a SQUEE for all of you!

* * *

"Sheldon, honey, why don't you tell me about this new project of yours?"

"I've been working on it for nine months, Mom. It's hardly _new._" He pushed himself away from the kitchen island, wanting dearly to have a piece of the dessert that was still warm, but uninterested. "Besides, you wouldn't understand. Maybe later, if you're having trouble falling asleep."

She shifted, looking a little uncomfortable, glancing at the door to the apartment as Leonard reentered, looking flustered but pleased. "Leonard! What's this paper my Shelley is working on?"

He glanced up, a slight frown coming over his face, and then grinned despite himself. "It's...not important, Mrs. Cooper. He'll get around to it when he gets around to it. But, if you want, I'll show you the experiments I've helped design based on his theories."

She, more trained than her son in the art of body language and subtle vocal tones, nodded and followed Leonard to the far corner of the apartment while Sheldon paced in front of his whiteboard. Reluctantly, he began to work on the right-hand side, trying and failing to ignore the equation he'd devised to sort through his thoughts concerning Penny. Right now, he gritted his teeth, she was all-consuming.

His mother's terrifying interrogation of him earlier was evidence enough he was completely submissive to her will. Penny had the same look about her when she wanted something. His fingers dug into the edge of his desk as he sat and tried to muster up the energy to open his laptop. Further examination of his bodily functions found his stomach in a slightly looser knot than usual, his heart at a steady rate, and his breathing fairly normal. A headache was starting to press between his eyes, but he ignored it and unclenched his fingers from his desk.

"Penny."

He looked around wildly as if he hadn't just said the words himself, and for a second, he was baffled. Then, remembering he'd said the word himself, he crushed his fingers into his wrist and noticed his heart rate had quickened. He was holding his breath. The lump in his stomach was heavier than chicken-fried steak. He didn't think he'd eat ever again. And, what was worse, the last page he'd had open on his browser loaded automatically and it reiterated his diagnosis.

_Feelings._ Very strong ones. For that infernal woman. He wanted to demand she move and leave him in peace, but even as the thought crossed his mind, he considered the fact he would likely waste away in her absence. The thought of her going anywhere for more than a few weeks made him feel...violent.

Thinking of Leonard and his mother whispering away in Leonard's bedroom snapped him from this dark place and he navigated away from the webpage that had automatically reopened when he clicked on his browser. Entering the research journal archives, he started going over some of his colleagues' work, hoping to be annoyed enough with their insufficient explanations to write a few paragraphs of his article.

Mary Cooper shut the door behind her and folded her arms. "That little, pretty thing across the hall—she put that mark on my boy's neck, didn't she?"

Leonard nodded, sitting on the edge of his unmade bed. He smiled carefully at her, linking his fingers. "Oddly enough, yes. She is, in many ways, his _equal._"

"Oh, honey, of course she is." Mary laughed, sitting beside Leonard softly. "A mother can tell from a mile away. She's a sweetheart—bullheaded, too. Everything Shelley's father would have wanted in a girl—she like football?"

"She's from Nebraska," Leonard replied dutifully.

Mary clapped her hands. "Oh, excellent! And he's actin' nuttier than a squirrel! I'll bet he just needs a good, hard shaking. He'll get it."

"While I agree he needs the shaking, I think the usual approach is safest. Slow and steady, like...hunting?"

Mary sniggered. "I suppose his pride _is_ at stake. He's _above_ all that. If I hadn't threatened to take away his stupid beakers and test tubes when he was little, I don't think he'd understand you _have_ to love your family. I mostly forgot about telling him about people outside the family." She clucked her tongue at herself. "He never wanted to hear it!"

"Well, he's getting an education _now," _Leonard assured her, turning a little to the side and pursing his lips at Mary's unimpressed stare. "Penny loves your son. She doesn't like it, but she does."

"I _knew_ I liked that girl!" Mary tittered, patting Leonard's knee excitedly. "She just has to be patient. Oh, Missy is going to have a fit when she finds out her twin is settling down before her!"

"I wouldn't rush it. Don't you think this might take...time?"

"I'll make sure it doesn't go on _too_ long," promised Mary. "Now, you can't push Shelley, but you can funnel him into the right paths. He'll get sick of standing still before long and move forward. We just have to take away some of his escape routes."

Leonard balked. "We'd have to take away the entire known _universe._"

"I'll see if I can't talk to his boss about getting a sabbatical. Shelley won't like it, but he'll think it's time to reset his brain and get cracking on this stupid paper of his." She thought carefully. "If Penny can fake an interest in comic books and paintball..."

"She's already too good at 'Halo.' I don't think she knows enough about comic books yet, but Sheldon loves teaching her. He's attracted to the challenge, I think." Leonard smiled, tilting his head back. "You think he'll come around?"

"You do whatever you think is necessary to get Penny ready for the headache that's comin'." She stood up and smoothed her pants softly. "I'm going to orchestrate what y'all call a catalyst. When Mee-Maw asks why her favorite grandson hasn't settled down yet and tells him she's worried he's unhappy...well, that'll funnel him down a particular path. If you pull your end of the deal, I might have grandchildren this time next year."

The pressure was immense, and not necessarily what Leonard saw for Sheldon and Penny in the next year, but her help was too valuable to ignore. Nodding, he stood and they exited the room together, silent, listening to a noise coming from the kitchen. Upon approaching, Mary saw her son curled in his desk chair, feet on the seat, knees up to his chin, arms snug around his long, lanky legs. He rocked a little, the chair squeaking, and craned his neck around to glare at the two of them.

"What conspiracy is this? I'll have you _both_ know I'm more than qualified to write my own research papers! I have a working knowledge of the entire universe!"

While Leonard made himself busy trying to convince his neurotic and paranoid (though it was hard to claim he was paranoid when he truly _was_ being manipulated to some degree) roommate they had just lost track of the time when talking about bilinear forms in Leonard's room, Sheldon's mother examined her son's eyes from a distance, trying to imagine his children and the changes he was trying so hard to avoid.

"Remember when you moved to California, darlin'?" she asked, interrupting Leonard's most desperate attempt to soothe him.

Sheldon's chin snapped over in her direction and he nodded curtly, waiting for her to continue. "Of course, Mom."

"You wanted to go _so_ badly, and you were still so scared. I wasn't sure you'd actually go through with it." She sighed, sitting in the armchair beside the couch, and put her chin in her hand. "But you wanted it, and you knew it'd make you _happy._ You could have taught in Texas. You could have done your research there and had a place close to home. No more church, no long commutes, none of the stuff you hated about being Galveston."

"Mom, the funding alone was a sufficient reason for me to relocate to Pasadena--"

She continued as if he weren't even in the room. "You wanted the change of scenery. You wanted the independence. You wanted to make new friends, real ones. I was so proud of you."

Leonard saw the spark of concern on his roommate's face and leaned closer, waiting for the moment Sheldon would say what he inevitably would, betraying him as a closeted softie.

"Was?" the poor boy squeaked.

Mary looked over at him, apologetic for the truth coming out like this. "Oh, Shelley, don't think I don't know you're brilliant, accomplished, all that jazz. It's just, mothers don't want their sons to grow up to be successful scientists. At least, that's not the _only_ thing they want, okay? When Leonard here gets married and moves out, then what?"

Sheldon scowled. "That's hardly a cause for concern."

"I won't say anymore about it," she promised quietly, but gave him a watery smile.

***

Penny wanted to phone Leonard and demand he call the whole thing off—she was really starting to feel bad for Sheldon, who'd been jumpy and exhausted between trying to work and the forced sabbatical his mother had asked for. She had hardly been gone a day when Leonard's mother showed up for a visit. The Christmas party was in less than a week and Penny had all but begged for that Friday to be restored as a night for just the gang to hang out. Leonard agreed to keep it small, but refused to subject her to another night of video games and comic book discussion with four men with whom she shared limited knowledge.

What was worse, though, was how immensely _pleased_ Sheldon had been when Beverly knocked on the apartment door and greeted him with an indifferent but lukewarm smile. He carried her bags into the apartment for her and started to ask how her most recent research had been treating her and she removed her glasses and cast a dismissive glance to Penny, who was standing voyeuristically by her apartment door, watching.

She wanted to beg for Beverly to leave him alone, but instead she retreated to her apartment to read through the last of the graphic novels Sheldon had leant her. Her focus shifted, thankfully, and she massaged her stomach, trying to get the knot to loosen.

Leonard's logic pervaded her even as she read through the most iconic of Batman's adventures. It was true, she realized, that if she'd known she'd feel _this way_ with Sheldon Cooper, she wouldn't have bothered with Kurt, or any of the others. She would gladly ride out the storm until he came around. Even her sunny disposition had a hard time telling her she would someday arrive at a place where Sheldon would do more than let his physical impulses control him occasionally. He was, despite his protests, a man. He had urges, she knew that now. But nothing about evolution meant he had to accept an emotional bond with another person. He really could live out the rest of his days alone, a human island in a sea of peninsulas.

Later that night, Beverly left, her bags trailing behind her. She stopped just long enough to tell Penny she was going to Seattle for a conference in the morning and bid her a good night. Penny accepted the wish with a baffled glance at the apartment across the hall before knocking gently and opening the door a crack, Sheldon's priceless collectibles in hand.

"Sheldon?"

He looked over at her from the couch. "Hello, Penny."

"Can I come in? I have your books."

"Graphic novels," he corrected, and adjusted himself on the couch, scrunching closer to the armrest. "And yes, you may enter."

She slipped in, smiling despite herself, and sat in the space he'd just made for her on the couch, handing him the three thin, hardcover books. He glanced at the covers again with a nostalgic smile before putting them on the coffee table and looking back up at the television.

Penny waited a full minute before clearing her throat gently and murmuring, "Sweetie, do you want to...turn it on?"

"Hm?" He looked around, located the remote, and pressed the power button. "I suppose. What did you want to watch?"

Squinting suspiciously, she watched him troll through the channels to find something suitable to watch. "I don't care. What did you and Bev talk about? Did she even say anything to Leonard?"

"She came to stop for a cup of tea—I happen to make it to her exact specifications." He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. "We talked about her research in the neurosciences."

"Firing synapses and all that junk?"

His eyes slid over to her though his head didn't move. He was glaring softly. "Crudely put, but yes. And she informed me she and her husband were getting a divorce. I think I'll have to let Leonard know when he gets back. Unless that's not the sort of thing I should relay to him."

"I doubt _she'll _tell him." Penny hid her sympathy, trying to figure out what exactly was going on with Sheldon, why he was even more masked than ever. "What else?"

He didn't tell her Beverly had enumerated the synapses of the brain that were triggered when the subject was 'in love.' How it was inexplicable, scientifically speaking—something he _hated_ to think even existed—and how she had lost faith in researching such a thing. He had tried futilely to change the subject but she had insistently pursued the topic of something he considered to be akin to the pure hokum of paranormal activity.

"Anomalies of science," he replied instead of explaining all this to her. He could picture the map of his brain under the colored grids of the MRI machine, or the CAT scanner. He was a lovely tie-dye pattern, always thinking, but parts of his brain were tired from constant activity. With so little use over the past twenty-some years, it was no wonder these past few weeks had been hell.

Sensing he was still dissecting whatever it was Beverly had been describing to him, Penny widened her eyes to herself and pulled her legs up to her side, sitting on her hip gently, angled toward him. "So, I liked _The Killing Joke_ the best. For obvious reasons."

"I never would have taken you for a Joker kind of girl," Sheldon commented dryly, glad to leave the topic of Leonard's mother at last. "I assume this means you were not a fan _Year One_, am I right?"

"No, they were all great." She hated herself a tiny bit, but she was getting animated, and excited she had something to engage him. She figured this was as close as it got, like when he humored her with her Penny Blossom project, or attempted to knit, or let her babble on about her job when it was uninteresting to the both of them.

Tugging on her shirt very gently, she looked at him as he settled on an old episode of "America's Next Top Model" she'd already seen. He muted it with a look of chagrin and faced her when she started to speak.

"The classics are the classics, I have to say, but I couldn't help but _love_ the chemistry Harley Quinn had with the Joker. I mean, come on! It's so unapologetic—she doesn't justify herself to anyone but him, and he _can't_ really love her or he wouldn't be the Puddin' she loves, and...and..." She saw a spark of something on his face—annoyance and intrigue. "I guess I liked _The Killing Joke_, but the closet maniac in me has to put _Mad Love_ in a close second."

"Dr. Quinzel must be put in second place, Penny." Sheldon tilted himself toward her, lacing his fingers like he was preparing his lecture very carefully. "His relationship with Batman is the most complex and intriguing of any in the history comics."

Sensing him waiting for her input, she nodded and felt her palms itching, but refrained from smoothing her hands over his forearms, letting him know she wasn't going to ask him what the hell his problem was this time. So, she tried to find the _Sheldon-y_ way of saying it, and gave what she figured was a concise book report on the matter.

She talked for what felt like hours, surprising even herself with all the things she was dredging up, recalling little snippets of conversations, even things Sheldon had been saying for years when arguing with Howard about the intriguing Dark Knight. Every time she glanced up, to make sure he wasn't bored to tears, he was staring at her like she was an amino acid he was trying to unravel. Rather than unnerving her, it spurred her on. She spoke until she'd told him every _last_ thing that had crossed her mind since she opened that first glorified comic book and started reading. She even told him about her community college philosophy class, the one with the professor desperate to have his students understand moral ambiguity, and how somebody who might have been a dumber, much less science-oriented Sheldon, suggested Batman.

Fighting the urge to interject for as long as possible, Sheldon finally broke and they began to trade theories, though his smugness and history made Penny's bravado falter more than once. He started with his physics routine, she countered with his startling lack of knowledge concerning anything in the pop culture sphere. He tried to counter with his usual spiel about subatomic particles, only this time she snapped out an answer that wasn't so utterly ignorant he really had no complaints. On top of _knowing_ just a little something, she threw on a small challenge herself, making an obscure, certainly not "current" music reference, which he caught. And informed her of.

He put the sound back on the TV even though he could have picked at her for another hour or so and Penny draped an afghan over her legs, still curled toward Sheldon. He pretended to watch for a while, about a minute, and then helplessly asked what qualifications the judges of the modeling show had, other than being photographed themselves for things over which they had no control.

"Be careful, bub. That's my bag. Hollywood."

"Well, at least _your_ talent is something that can be studied. This appears to be about the things we are or not 'born with.' And learning how to look 'fierce,' whatever that is."

Penny smirked, then cleared her throat, positioning her shoulders as Sheldon looked over at her, his eyebrow quirked. She put on her best Tyra-face and held it for a few seconds before giggling, tearing her eyes from Sheldon's utterly lost expression.

She couldn't help her inner nature, and Sheldon basically accepted what that was. The thought that _Sheldon_ was the only one who simply accepted her, even though she baffled him and he had an idea of what every person in the world _ought_ to be like...it made her feel both warm and electric, like she was about to throw her arms out wide and try to hug the world, like she used to when she was just a little girl.

Instead she leaned and kissed Sheldon's cheek, shaking her head as she moved her center of gravity back over her own hips and took the remote from his limp hand. She fished around on their menu for a while until she found a marathon on the Discovery Channel she thought he might enjoy and settled on that. Sheldon was able to reign in his desire to tell her she'd done well and find a way to reward her. He simply heaved a contented sigh and tried to focus on the on-air 'mythbusting.'

He didn't have to stare, unblinking, at the screen for long before Howard and Raj let themselves in. They were arguing in hushed tones already, and seemed a little surprised to see Penny curled on her hip, sitting next to Sheldon, who was oddly rigid, even for him.

"Hello," Howard dragged out the last syllable, smiling broadly at Penny as she craned her neck around. "Enjoying a little Savage-time, I see. If that one chick weren't so hot, though, I cant say I'd even watch the show."

A surge of affection drowned Penny for a moment and she hugged her arms to her chest, grinning at still-mute Raj, and Howard, who was lusting shamelessly after the female experimenter on the television. "Hey, Howard. What's up? Where's Leonard?"

Raj shrugged, being as expressive as he could as he sat beside Penny and started to twiddle his thumbs. Howard, helping himself to a bottle of water, made a noise like he couldn't remember where he'd last seen Leonard, who had made himself quite scarce lately. Penny was sure it was due to some intense scheming, though what he could orchestrate to even put Sheldon in a position where he would have to 'sink or swim' was a mystery.

"So, remind me what's on the schedule tonight." Howard sat on the arm of the armchair beside Sheldon and smiled, slouching easily as impatience flitted over Sheldon's serene features, disrupting them.

He opened his mouth to reply when his eyes flickered over to the clock, and then his watch, and then his forehead crinkled and he stood up, nearly upsetting the coffee table and all the graphic novels. Penny thought carefully, realized tonight was Sunday, and that she usually worked on Sundays and had only hazy memories of their usual exploits. She knew they had been forced to abandon paintball plans due to Leonard's mother's visit, but Sheldon had figured this was going to happen when she'd first appeared and it hadn't upset him too terribly much.

She assumed tonight was a calm, no-nonsense night of television, take-out, and chess. Why he would suddenly stand and march over to the refrigerator, doing a poor job of looking like he'd nearly forgotten something but managed to save the day, bewildered her. Pretending very hard to watch the TV and not Sheldon pacing slowly back and forth in the kitchen, Penny felt Raj tap her arm softly, as if afraid of rebuke already.

She looked at him silently and he leaned a little, clearing his throat very softly before whispering, "I think he forgot what day it is."

She almost squeaked out in shock over the two simultaneous events. If Raj, who'd just spoken a coherent, multi-word sentence to her without alcohol (that she knew of), was telling the truth, it would mean Sheldon had let his _routine_ get away from him. Between that morning when he'd deliberately filled his time he should have been playing paintball with getting a head-start on his taxes, and this moment, he'd forgotten the day.

When she regained a bit more of her senses, she looked at Raj, still startled. "Raj!"

His face was drawn, she imagined he might be blushing, or trying very hard not to, and he shrugged. "No offense, but you lose an element of that attractive mystique when you...you know."

"Tonight," Sheldon finally announced, looking relieved in the kitchen, his elbows on the counter as he bent over a cup of water he was about to heat up for tea, "is re-run night."

Penny looked away from Sheldon at Raj with a bit of a scowl. "Because I'm not unnecessarily mean to the big goof?"

Raj swallowed, thinking he was better off silent, and shrugged, facing the television as Sheldon returned, a strange sway in his walk, the one he put on when he was taking his time, letting his people worship him for having so much of the known universe figured out. The one that said he knew people were hopeless without him. Penny wanted to roll her eyes, but she couldn't this time.

"Oh, hey, who's been re-reading these?" Howard tenderly picked up one of the graphic novels, treating it like an old friend. "Ah, what beautiful times..."

Even though she'd just opened her mouth to answer, Sheldon swiveled as he took his seat beside her and started to speak. "Penny has decided it's time for her to appreciate the DC Universe, and she's doing so _properly._"

"Proper would be starting with the first issue, wouldn't it?" Raj asked, folding his arms a little tighter to his body.

Sheldon stared a moment, quirked his eyebrow, and then commented, "Interesting."

It was a typical night. Any minute now, Leonard would come bustling in with styrofoam containers, Sheldon would ask if he'd gotten all the right condiments, and Penny would volunteer to get the mustard, or the barbeque sauce, or whatever it was he'd forgotten. She'd hardly get the door shut before Howard would make an off-color comment about her ass, and Sheldon would complain his food would be cold by the time she returned from the market.

While Penny knew with all her being she had to take things slowly, she didn't _want_ tonight to be normal. She was sitting next to the man she loved and he was no wiser. She wanted to announce it, much like she had announced to the boys she'd kissed their eclectic friend, but it didn't seem right. So she settled for somewhat-subtle, sidling up closer to Sheldon and leaning against his arm while he listened to Raj mumbling this and that, sneaking nervous glances at Penny, who was thankfully not listening to him at all.

Her arm against his was branding him, marking him like a steer brand new to the farm. While not altogether unpleasant, it was strange. The odd, growling beast inside him that usually surfaced when she touched him was calm, though still extremely volatile. At any moment, he could tell he could lose control, much like he had in the laundry room, and make a fool of himself in front of two of the only people in the world who voluntarily spent time with him.

Howard and Sheldon started bickering about their personal Top 10 Batman graphic novels, and Penny tried not to listen, but she couldn't help herself. They quickly shut her up by pointing out she'd only read five or six of the hundreds available and she pouted only slightly, her arms folded, Sheldon inching closer to her in his excitement, arguing with Wolowitz.

She looked at the door to the apartment, gratitude in her eyes as Leonard arrived to save the day. He smiled a little and lifted the bag from the Indian restaurant, looking at Raj questioningly when he quietly interjected with his own personal list of favorites.

Rising to help him unpack their meals, Penny pressed her lips together, shrugging. "Apparently he's okay one-on-one with women he doesn't find attractive."

Leonard laughed gently. "We've been putting up with him for years. I suppose you can't blame him for finding it unsettling, can you?"

"You have to admit, though...it's pretty cute he isn't a natural at the whole good-friend routine. But, he tries! I happen to know he attempts to comfort you guys when he knows you're having a rough time."

"Key words being 'attempts' and 'knows.' If he figures out I'm not having the best day, which is rare enough, he'll _try_ to do something about it, but it's usually not that effective." Leonard blinked twice at the extra bag of groceries. "I forgot to get Diet Coke."

"I'll get it. And egg nog, if you want."

"I'm lactose intolerant, Penny!"

"Not for _you,_ obviously." She gave him her best innocent grin. "Unless you want me to save that kind of yuletide joy for the party."

"I'd say yes for sure if Raj were over there, desperate to join in the conversation. But, with you relegated to basically sister-status, it's all on you. If _you_ want to, go ahead. Nobody's stopping you. And thanks for offering to get the soda."

Sighing lightly, she put the plastic cutlery down, knowing most everyone was going to use regular utensils anyway, and started across the apartment to get her car keys.

"Penny?" Sheldon stood and followed her to the door. She turned, waving her arms at him, not wanting to interrupt their most recent argument on the limits of Batman's superhuman strength.

"Where are you going?" he inquired as she stopped at her own apartment door and waited for him to ignore her. "Dinner just arrived and you—unless!" He looked over his shoulder meaningfully and stepped into the hall, collecting his hands behind his back. "Leonard forgot something."

"Yep," she replied, wagging her eyebrows. "Wanna tag along, Sheldon?"

She invited him more out of friendly habit than genuine intrigue. She started to turn to continue in her apartment, watching him shake his head to the negative, and then he surprised both of them and muttered, "Yes."

They both looked surprised. Penny paused, and then cautiously opened her door a crack. "Go...get your jacket, I guess. It's cold out. We won't have time to stop at the comic book store, or Pottery Barn, or anywhere else, just so you know."

Sheldon tightened his hands, already regretting it, but he absolutely wanted to accompany her. "I know. Our food would be too cold to enjoy anyway. I'll get my jacket. You'll need time to change—I'm assuming you're not running out in those 'Hello Kitty' pajama bottoms this time of year."

"Yeah, I guess I should." She wanted the painful awkwardness to disappear.

But Sheldon, in his inability to recognize the odd tension, effortlessly dissolved the situation. "Can we avoid Euclid Avenue tonight?"

"We're headed in the other direction—the Diet Coke is on sale there." She waved at him again. "Go! Your dinner's going to need to thaw if we wait much longer."

"That's _highly_ unlikely considering—" he stopped short when she shut her door loudly and rolled her eyes. Ducking back inside, he swiftly skittered to his room, shrugged on his coat, and found his wallet, sliding it into his pocket out of habit. He wanted dearly to pack his messenger bag, but he couldn't imagine what he'd need at the store from his bag, what could possibly fit in there. So, instead, he checked the slots in his wallet, made sure the cards were arranged alphabetically, and exited his room, his hand locked on the doorknob.

Leonard frowned and looked pointedly at the steam rising out of Raj's open container of Indian food. "Sheldon, where are you going? And _don't_ say the comic book store again!"

"I'm accompanying Penny to the market. We'll be back soon."

Howard lifted his eyebrows. "Slow down, cowboy."

"Not likely considering how Penny drives." Sheldon snorted and started for the door, but Howard didn't let it go. He spun, watching Sheldon's retreating frame, and shook his head.

"No, man, c'mon! Why don't you just ask her out on a _real_ date or something?"

Leonard covered his face and Raj stuffed his face with curry and rice, hoping his expression wouldn't give him away while Sheldon turned a funny reddish-pink color and flexed his fingers, face twitching wildly.

Howard rolled his eyes dramatically. "Oh, right, because lone wolf Sheldon Cooper doesn't need the warmth of human companionship. You do know being in the company of lesser beings isn't going to drag you down, right? It'll pull the poor saps up, whether or not they want to be." He slouched, but immediately straightened up again. "Oh, and if we _do_ happen to drag you down, I think you'd be a little happier, buddy. So just...go the store with Penny and pretend it's her check engine light worrying you or whatever you tell yourself. Remember we _all_ saw what she did to your neck."

"Even your mother saw," Leonard added, shrugging apologetically when Sheldon shot him a betrayed look.

He wanted to tell them the purpose of a date was to get to know another person, and he got to know Penny best when he did laundry with her, when she pulled her mask of sweet, unassuming Midwesterner off and revealed her inner huntress. Their verbal spars betrayed her true intelligence, her open warmth revealed her naivete and willingness to trust. He knew of the two of them, he presented the greater challenge in really 'getting to know,' and yet she had certain parts of him figured out to the letter. She _never_ messed up his food orders anymore. She had learned about physics, pretending it was for his benefit, but really out of a mild but flattering personal interest. Somehow she made him remember the natural urge to pursue the pleasurable things in life, embraced his many hobbies and habits. He knew more about her than he'd ever admit, though usually he enjoyed flaunting his knowledge to anyone who'd listen.

Penny opened the door a crack and leaned in. "Sheldon? You change your mind?"

"I..." He glowered at Howard and Leonard a moment, lumping one in with Raj for good measure before turning and opening the door to let himself out. "No, let's go."

In the car, he buckled himself securely, waited until she'd started the car, and then looked out the window curiously at the putt-putt golf course she'd taken him to, however grudgingly, when she'd been forced to drive him to work when Leonard was unable.

"Penny!" he remembered suddenly, sitting up a little more, checking for traffic for her as she waited at the exit of the parking lot for cars to pass. "When you agreed to the compromise, you said I owed you a dinner out. When does that condition expire?"

"What?" She looked at him distractedly before shaking her head. "Oh, Honey, it's fine, trust me. I was annoyed at the time, and a little strapped for cash. Don't take it seriously. You and Leonard have paid for my take-out at least a dozen times."

"I've never personally paid for it," he argued back. "Leonard, in his never-ending desire to gain constant access to sexual..." He stopped short, remembering Leonard's rules. "Sex," he corrected himself at last, "he was always the one who paid, even though he never took proper credit for it."

Penny shook her head, actually irritated with him, and turned a little too sharply, considering an alternative route including Euclid Avenue. "Turns out it was an ending quest, Sheldon."

"If you were to offer him sexual gratification right this moment, Penny--"

"First of all, I don't want to talk about this with you right now, and second, I wouldn't _offer_ something like that to him right now."

Sheldon looked at her pointedly. "There's someone else?"

"You care?" she retorted bitingly.

He buttoned his lip, hating how easily he could destroy a perfectly good opportunity to snoop in her effortless social interactions. Sensing she actually wanted an answer, he cleared his throat as quietly as possible and answered, "No. You know my affinity for small-talk is nonexistent."

Nodding, Penny took a deep breath, trying not to find him insufferable all the sudden, and find his ulterior motive. Simple curiosity didn't seem enough of a reason, but she could find nothing else. Ignoring his squirming in the other seat, she tried to focus on all the nice things he seemed to be doing for her lately, purposefully or inadvertently.

"Sometimes, Sheldon, I think you should just...I dunno, _not_ ask the questions. I wouldn't...I wouldn't have let you kiss me, or kissed you _back_ if I was going to sleep with Leonard or had a date, or any of that." She looked at him pointedly. "It's social protocol. At least, it's _good_ social protocol. While I may be a terrible flirt sometimes, I've been cheated on enough to know it's not a good feeling when someone leads you on."

"Leads you on," Sheldon repeated, sounding interested despite his impassive stare. "What were you doing with Leonard?"

"Giving him a chance," she tightened her hands on the wheel, gritting her teeth. "There's a difference. I'll explain it to you another time, when I'm not tempted to set off your airbag just to hear it hit your _face._"

He made a high-pitched noise of confusion and irritation, facing her in his seat. "Now, hold on! I'm confused."

"Honey, I know a lot of things confuse you. Just...not right now."

"Fine, fair enough." He smoothed his palms against his pants, swallowing. "Colas are good for stomach pains."

"You have stomach pains?" Penny couldn't keep the note of terror from her voice, hoping he wasn't getting sick.

Nodding glumly, Sheldon slouched in his seat and looked out the window as she made the final turn. "Don't worry. I don't have a fever or any other worrisome symptoms. It appears the pain is primarily psychological in origin."

Throwing the car into park, Penny sighed and reached, smoothing his hair even though it never needed her attention. "Could it be guilt, Dr. Cooper? Are you starting to figure out you shouldn't feel apathetic when you upset your friends?"

"Not my friends, _you," _he accused, sounding annoyed with himself. "But, like you said, later. Let's grab whatever else it is Leonard's forgotten and get back before the food is unsalvageable."

"Hey, wait." She called to him as she manually locked her door. "Sheldon, wait!"

He looked back at her and put his hands in his pockets, waiting as patiently as he could while she darted around and manually locked his door. She gathered her coat tightly around her waist and walked over to him, sliding her arms in the space between his arms and his sides, a perfect hole left to fill since his hands were stuck in his pockets, his elbowed bowed. She hugged him gently, wishing he could understand her through osmosis so she wouldn't have to find any words. Closing her eyes, she squeezed him until he released the breath he held and removed his hands from his pockets, patting her on the back gently.

"Penny, dinner...it'll be cold."

"No matter how long it takes for us to get back, it'll be cold. So just hug me, Sheldon. _Please._"

"All right," he rearranged his arms and lowered his chin to her head. "Tell me if I'm doing it right."

A shiver totally unrelated to the chilly December air raced through her and she tilted her head back, watching him redirect his stare. She allowed a beat to pass between them before sliding to the tips of her toes, her arm slithering around his neck, pulling him down. Sheldon, acting like a pro, closed his eyes slowly and leaned down, opening his mouth just a little, surprised at the warmth of the kiss in the frigid, dry air. Unlike their previous encounters, there was no strangling sensation, no worry he would end up dizzy, gasping for breath, her knees locked at his hips, hugging him impossibly tight. This was, Penny realized only a moment later, pure affection. Two people who _cared about each other._

And suddenly it didn't matter if he realized how he felt today, or tomorrow, or ever. She didn't even care if she fully understood what he was feeling, nor did she care if he fully understood it. Because _this_ moment...was sublime.

In the distance, a woman sighed and the man holding her hand pulled her forward, bewildered by her hopeless romanticism.

Penny pulled away just a fraction of an inch to breathe and Sheldon pulled her close. The next kiss was short, sweet. She put her face in his neck, hiding in the length and warmth there, feeling almost too comfortable. It would be tempting to let him come to terms with the _emotions_ of this entire ordeal on his own, but she had made a sort of promise to herself. When she'd told him he had to take her out to dinner, that he had to make concessions, she'd promised herself to inch him out of his hidey-hole, bit by bit. At the time, it had been because he was in dire need for help. Now it was because the hero always peeked, and Sheldon had made himself the hero despite his endless pursuit of objective, scientific discovery.

He knew he was already holding her painfully close, but he squeezed just a little tighter and tried to get the sick, coiled feeling in the pit of his stomach to ebb away, but it only got worse. They broke apart and he reached a little, as if to take Penny's hand, but she started walking without glancing back, her face glowing, utterly ignorant to everything around her. He followed pitifully, almost picking another fight with her, just to hear the edge come back to her voice. But he found some fountain of self-control and silenced himself.

He shook his head to himself while Penny perused the bottled wine and egg nog selection, a package of bottled Diet Coke under her arm, picturing his mother's face if she knew he had tried to hold Penny's hand, that he had just let her kiss him _again,_ that he was seriously considering accepting the hypothesis that he, Sheldon Cooper, PhD., was considering a life-changing paradigm of epic proportions.

He excused himself when his cell phone rang, peeking at the display. Penny saw an unabashed smile cross his face as he walked over to the benches by the exit while she loaded her items onto the counter by the clerk. She kept one ear out for his voice, hearing him as if they were the only two in the store.

"Hi, Mee-Maw!"

She nearly dropped the twenty dollar bill she held out to the clerk, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was Leonard's doing and that she was going to be pushed farther away before she could get close again.


	7. Negotiation

Author's Note: OMGG HI! I'm hoping I'll be able to get one more chapter out before Christmas, but I'm not making any promises. Weather the storm of angst, my babies. Muahaha!

Also, long reviews are my heart and soul. You guys rock. You make me want to write beautiful, beautiful things. I'm a writing fiend! Here we go!

* * *

Leonard looked at his phone for the time and sat in Sheldon's spot, muting the television despite Howard's mewling that the model speaking was positively _oozing_ sex. He shot his comrades, his partners in crime, a hushed look and laced his fingers together delicately.

"Gentlemen, we know he doesn't operate like a regular man. The usual tactics will not suffice. We need a different game-plan, and soon. His grandmother will probably call him while they're at the store. We may not get another time to convene like this with the work-week starting up. Any ideas?"

Howard tore his eyes from the screen. "What's his grandmother calling him about?"

"Yeah, and how do you know?" Raj added, sitting back a little with a worried frown.

Leonard smiled triumphantly. "Sheldon's mom is on board, that's how I know. She wants grandchildren and her prayer group has enough patience to ask Jesus for guidance."

Raj squinted disbelievingly. "Patience? It's not like they're here in California putting up with him all the time. _I_ could have the patience for him if I were in India right now, hearing this all play out over a web-cam."

Howard shook his head. "Regardless, we should have our own plan. How about we set Penny up with somebody? Her usual dates aren't enough to stir up protective feelings, but maybe if Sheldon felt threatened?"

"I doubt we're going to convince Dennis Kim to take her out, and other than that, I don't see anyone Sheldon would care to compare himself with," Leonard responded dismissively. "It doesn't matter if the guy is stronger, bigger, more attractive. He won't believe it if the guy is supposedly smarter. I don't think he _gets_ jealous."

"Didn't you say he freaked a little when she kissed you?" Raj pressed. "When you first realized she was into him?"

Leonard waved his arm. "It might have been jealousy, but it's more likely his pride. She was going against his wishes again, in his head. To him, Penny and I were doomed right from the start and he advised us both against it."

Howard perked up, his eyes lighting up deviously. "So we hit him where we know it actually hurts! His pride!"

"How? We don't have monopoles or Stevenson Awards to take from him. He'll be thorough enough to research any lies we concoct." Raj picked up his take-out container with a look of mild trepidation. "How long do you think it'll take to talk him out of Indian food night?"

"I could start preliminary paperwork now. I'd expect serious changes by September next year, if at all." Leonard stirred his curry weakly. "But we _could_ try to find a hole in his armor. I mean, just because he's obsessed with recognition doesn't mean a guy smarter than he is isn't out there already. A good actor would be able to memorize lines—he could sound convincing enough. And if he could deflect the conversation--"

Howard stood up from excitement, digging in his skinny-leg jeans for his phone. "I have just the guy. My cousin's husband from Detroit—he's a brilliant DJ and he'll be here in California feeling out the LA crowd in time for the Christmas party. God, this might actually work!"

Raj put his fork down and rolled his eyes. "How is this going to work? This is _Sheldon_ we're talking about here, remember?"

"He's got one of Sheldon's memories—but he's a college drop-out and an amazing musician. He plays the sensitive musician card like Leonard plays the cello." Howard dialed. "We give him until the night before the Christmas party to bone up on physics, comic books, and paintball. He comes as Penny's 'date,' and when Sheldon sees someone who's everything he is _plus_ actual social skills, he should, if the hypothesis is correct, flip his lid and go after the girl."

Shaking his head, Raj pulled a loose thread on his sweater-vest. "Yes, he'll flip his lid, but there are two possible outcomes here—either Sheldon decides the female is his, or he completely shuts down. Leonard?"

Howard paused, his thumb hovering over the 'talk' button on his phone, and Raj held his breath. Leonard's eyes darted between the two of them, realizing they were waiting for his input only a second too late. Hedging on the answer, he tried to come up with a way to talk himself into one of the two avenues, but he found Sheldon oddly unpredictable in this particular vacuum. No one was really to what lengths he would travel to have Penny. The only thing they were sure of was he was feeling the stirrings of attraction and learning to accept them. At the very least he was learning not to abhor the arrival of real affection.

"I don't know," Leonard finally muttered, wiping a hand through his hair. "Penny wants to let him take his time. She really listened to his mom when she told us all how slowly Sheldon adjusts to changes, how he needs a lot of space when he's been hurt."

"Yeah, well, Penny _always_ listens when it's about Sheldon," Raj muttered. "And he always listens to her. If he's starting to recognize that she's into him, even if he doesn't understand what that means, he should be able to understand when another man starts pissing on his turf, shouldn't he?"

Howard hesitated again, looking torn. "He didn't know when he'd stolen your date from you with that whole monkey princess nonsense. He's _clueless._"

Raj looked up, defensive, and curled his lip a little. "This is different! It's written into a man's DNA; when a woman tells you, chemically, verbally, whatever, that she wants to be with _you,_ it is not easily tolerated when she turns around and cozies up to somebody else! Especially if he's more _anything _than you are!"

Leonard shushed them when he heard voices in the hallway, but he quickly determined they were tenants from the fifth floor and scooted forward on his seat, pushing his glasses up his nose with his free hand while he checked his phone for the time again. "Okay, so it's our only option. And if it fails, he'll see nothing weird with her having another 36-hour relationship that goes nowhere. It doesn't appear to lessen his opinion of her, so...I say we go for it."

"And hope to God he doesn't assume he's not good enough for her and give up entirely on humanity. Sounds good," Howard replied sarcastically. "I know it was my idea and everything, but...let's think about this. As much as I razz on him, he's still...you know. A friend?"

"I'm sure he'd be touched to hear you say that," Raj replied dryly and motioned toward Howard urgently. "Make the call. It's all we've got right now."

***

"How's my Moon-pie?"

Sheldon did his best to position himself so he was facing more toward the exit than the check-outs, but he couldn't do so without looking woefully awkward, a tangle of knees and elbows, and so he settled for tilting his face toward the claw machine in the vestibule and grinning like an idiot at his reflection. "I'm doing well. Very well, in fact. I'm at the market with my neighbor, picking up a few staples. How are you?"

"Oh, I suppose I'm doing all right. I do miss my favorite grandson, of course. When are you coming to visit?" Her voice called on memories of warm cookies, light-hearted tickling matches, and the smell of ginger. Sheldon missed her terribly and it hadn't occurred to him until he heard her voice like she was sitting two feet away, speaking softly into his ear. He cursed the superior sound quality he'd insisted upon when selecting a new cellular device.

He sighed, feeling tired and pitifully unprepared for this conversation. "I'm not sure at the moment. I've got to teach this awful class next term, so I won't have any real leisure time until March, perhaps even April. And with this blasted sabbatical my mother has imposed on me with help from Gablehauser...well, if I don't get something done while I'm stuck at my apartment, I'll be weeks behind on my next dissertation and _that_ certainly doesn't bode well."

And then his grandmother, his most beloved of all his family members, clucked her tongue at him—something she only did when she was displeased or disappointed with him in some way. He felt the stirrings of unrest in his stomach and he rapidly lost what little appetite he'd conjured up for the evening. He felt more nauseous than before and spun, looking wildly for Penny, who was going through the different gum flavors, though she seemed to feel his stare and turned, smiling encouragingly at him. He took in a deep breath and looked at his shoes.

"Meemaw?"

"Your momma asked for that time so you could get _out_ away from work for a little bit. A vacation, Sweet-Cakes. Even brilliant minds need to take a break now and then, don't they?"

He'd closed his eyes during her gentle explanation, actually pining for the familiar sounds of Texan accents and cracking beer tabs. Snapping himself from this grandmother-induced daze, he rubbed his forehead with his free hand and bent over his knees, wondering if he ought to ask Penny to take him to the hospital, feeling flushed and nauseous. The onset of a headache was the third and final nail in the coffin causing his hypochondria to take over.

"I'm sorry if I'm not more talkative. I'm not feeling well this evening."

"Nothing a round of 'Soft Kitty' and some warm soup won't cure. It isn't that swine flu, is it?"

He shook his head, pulling his knees to his chest, heels resting on the bench seat. "No. It's not consistent in any particular way. In fact, I'm really starting to believe it's purely psychological. I should call Beverly and see who I might consult for a second opinion."

"Well, how are ya feelin'?" He could hear the sounds of her antique tea set clinking softly in the background and he thought how late it must be in Galveston, how she must be having her tea before bed, and how he wanted desperately for there to be more time.

So, quietly, he briefly reported his symptoms. "No appetite, slightly feverish, mild head pains, a stomachache, and oddly...giddy through it all. A curious amalgamation, I should say."

After a few moments of what he thought was silence, he heard the whispery sounds of her laugh as it built from a chuckle to a full belly-laugh in a slow crescendo. He sat up straight, feeling affronted somehow, almost betrayed by her dismissal of his extremely distressing bodily misery.

"What is it? How is this funny?" he demanded, keeping his tone polite despite his irritation.

"Moon-Pie, is that girl your momma was telling me about with you at the store?"

His eyes betrayed him and he looked over at Penny as she took her change from the clerk, slid the receipt into her wallet, and hefted the paper bag containing the six-pack of bottle Diet Coke, a carton of egg nog, and the most recent edition of _People._

"Yes," he whispered urgently.

"I'm so proud of you, Sheldon." Her voice was tender, like she was looking at him as he was when he was standing shakily on her porch between the rocking chair and the old wood-stove, waiting for a kiss goodbye before he went to college. He'd been just a boy then, and though his intellectual pursuits meant the world to him, he did understand the sacrifices he was making. At that time, the most important covenant he'd made was the one he'd made with his grandmother. He'd promised to write letters if she sent care packages. He promised to visit her every time he was in Texas. She promised to send him only the _best_ cookies from her batch. She promised to make sure his sister didn't break any of his 'inventions' while he was away.

After she'd hugged him, his father, forever impatient, honked the horn of their beat-up Ford pick-up and Sheldon slouched, looking like an orphan, like he was about to toss aside his Batman backpack and wrap his frail arms around her leg and beg to stay with her instead.

"Put your chin up," she'd told him then. "I'm proud of you, Sheldon."

Instinctively he stuck his chin up, but this time he didn't know where the terror ahead was, or where she wanted him to go. He had no literal heel to spin on, no destination he was aware of, and his doting grandmother, who spoiled him and enabled him in the worst ways, humanized him. He let his gaze drift over Penny a moment and his heart tightened with his stomach.

"She sits in my _spot,_ Meemaw." Penny approached, her hips swinging just a little, smiling at him cautiously, asking silently if it was all right she came closer, possibly intruding on this moment. "She doesn't understand a _thing_ about what I do for a living. She makes fun of me at every opportunity!"

He was panting and his grandmother said nothing, just listened. With the limited time he had, considering Penny was slowly pacing over, a frown on her face, he turned away once more, seeing his pale cheeks and bluish lips in the reflection of the claw machine's gaudy, fun-house mirror.

"She _kisses_ me sometimes."

"I know you and you wouldn't _let_ her if you didn't like it just a little, Sheldon Lee." Her tone was fierce (immediately he saw Penny's face twisted up like that awful supermodel; he watched her dissolve into giggles while spots danced in his vision). "Listen to me carefully and realize that I don't need no fancy whiteboard or flowchart to know this without a doubt: you are _attracted_ to her."

_Categorically impossible,_ he wanted to say. _I have no time for these inane relationships. I have more important things to be doing. I need no partner—not in science, not in life. I prefer to be alone. Just because I tolerate her exceedingly physical representations of friendship does not mean I completely accept the notion I am attracted to Penny. I have no control over my biological responses to her. Depriving myself of human contact over time has made me more sensitive to these advances. I am not suitable to her needs. I am not capable of providing the type of relationship Penny desires, nor the one she needs._

"She's right there?" His grandmother sighed loudly.

He didn't need to answer as he looked away from his cold, expressionless reflection and over at Penny, who had come to a slow halt beside the bench, her fingers tightening on the corner of the paper bag she was resting on her hip. Snaking an eye along her frame, he lowered his feet to the ground and started to push himself up when she waved him down, mouthing that she'd load the car and pull it to the doors. She started out the door without him and he paused, thinking it was nice of her to give him the time he needed when his grandmother's voice, soft like she was a miniature angel (or demon?) sitting on his shoulder, whispered to him.

"For God's sake, boy! Carry the bags!"

Like the good Southern boy he was, Sheldon obeyed; he tilted the mouthpiece away from his chin only slightly and called, "Penny! Let me carry that."

Lifting her eyebrow, she held out her arms, balancing the bag, and Sheldon, looking torn and a little miffed, handed her his phone and took the bag, securing it against his side. He pushed the door open for her and propped it with his foot, waiting for her to take her cue. She headed out first, looking at the display on his phone before awkwardly lifting to her ear, taking care not to get her mouth too closer just in case he threw a fit about germs.

She'd hardly opened her mouth to apologize to his grandmother for interrupting their conversation when the older woman started to speak in short, twangy tones that demanded Penny's complete and undivided attention.

"Listen carefully and listen _good,_ young lady. You are dealing with my grandson—he's easy to spook, but you crack a small enough hole in him to get inside and get safe, you're going to be fine. Now, I've talked to Mary about you and I want you to know you're doing a fine job. That bein' said, I can't miss the opportunity to tell you Sheldon's grandfather taught me to use the old 12-gauge in the garage and I have plenty of property here in Texas. I have no problem spending the rest of my days in lock-up, understood?"

"Understood," Penny replied, used to hearing her father say this to her high school boyfriends enough to know it was futile to explain how honorable her intentions were.

"Good. Now, don't you play with his heart. He's shy, believe it or not. But don't you let him push you around neither—give him an inch and he'll take a whole light-year if he can." She chuckled and then cleared her throat noisily. "You tell him I headed to bed and there's a letter in the mail comin' for him in time for Christmas. And tell him I love him."

"Of course. It was, uh, wonderful to finally speak to you. Sheldon talks about you all the time." Penny shot Sheldon a teasing smile while he squirmed, shifting the weight of the bag in his arms, watching her helplessly while she talked to his grandmother—a person so dear to him he kept letters she'd written him stashed in a box in his bedroom, so dear he couldn't stand the use of her nickname for him used by anyone else, so dear he shamelessly professed his affection for her, given the opportunity.

"Save the sentiment for when we speak in person, Dear. I'm sure we will." Before Penny could reply, she'd hung up and Penny had no choice but to fake a farewell and slip Sheldon's phone into the outer pouch of her purse, sliding her key in the passenger's side door to let him in.

"Why did you hang up?" he asked, sounding horrified.

"She said there's a letter in the mail coming in time for Christmas, so she was going to go to bed and let us get back to whatever it was we were doing before she interrupted. And that she loves her nummy-nummy Moon-Pie." She stuck her tongue out a little at his glare. "Don't be such a baby, Sheldon. I think it's adorable."

"Cute is acceptable, adorable implies you find me infantile." He folded his arms, the bag resting between his feet on the floor. "I'm not a child."

She bent and kissed his forehead loudly. "Don't pout, Sweetie."

He yanked his door shut the second she was out of the way and she sighed, going to her side to unlock her own door when she felt her phone buzzing in her jeans pocket. Frowning, she fished it out, holding the key near the slot on her door, hopelessly lost trying to understand Howard's text.

_Next Monday meet me at Bernadette's apt. so I can introduce you to Ian. We have a plan._

She sat in the car and hit the 'reply' option, but when she reached to put the keys in the ignition, Sheldon launched into a long list of reasons she should avoid texting a driving. She heard, _I wouldn't want you to get hurt, Penny._ So, canceling the reply, she put her phone back in her pocket, buckled up, and started the car, taking a moment to smooth the black electrical tape back over the check engine light before pulling out of the parking lot.

***

Howard loitered by the bar of the Cheesecake Factory like it was his job to creep out all the other patrons of the restaurant entirely. He kept shooting nervous glances over his shoulder and avoiding Penny's gaze like it burned his skin. She had absolutely no problem ignoring him right back, however, and went about her usual hustle-and-bustle with fewer problems than normal.

Stepping into the walk-in freezer to check her messages during a rare moment of down-time, Penny saw a collection from Raj, Howard, and Leonard, which made her feel less anxious about leaving work straight for Bernadette's for some kind of meeting with the maroon-and-yellow disaster loitering at the bar..

_Howard has a cousin from Detroit,_ Leonard explained, _and he agreed last night to come as your fake-date to the Christmas party._

She frowned and scrolled to the next message, this sent by Raj. _Forgive us,but this was the only conceivable way we could think to help you get more than your big toe in the door._

Brain buzzing, she looked at the next message, still a little confused. _Come to my gf Bernadette's like we talked about and I'll explain everything._

The next message. _I mean *everything.*_

The next. _Stop looking at me you're blowing my cover!_

Rolling her eyes, Penny hit the reply button, puffed her cheeks out in the cold air of the freezer, and let her fingers dance over the keys of her phone. _howard, u blo yr own cover w/o my help. quit scarin the cstmrs._

She slid her phone back into an unused pocket of her apron, smoothed her uniform shirt one last time, and threw open the door to the freezer, stepping out with a little sigh of relief as the hot air from the grill poured over and erased her goosebumps. Taking this moment for herself, she relished the fact her feet didn't hurt yet, her calves were burning lightly from good exercise, and her heart was only aching a little.

Clueless Sheldon, lost-in-thought Sheldon, lost Sheldon influenced most of her heartaches these days. Last night, after they climbed the stairs to 4A, arguing about _Batman: The Dark Knight Returns_ and its drawing style, they'd arrived at the door and Sheldon tried it, finding it locked. Penny fetched her spare key from the apartment and let them in. Their food was in the fridge, labeled clearly, with a disclaimer on Sheldon's claiming it hadn't been touched. No such promise for Penny's meal, however.

_"There's a note for you in my spot," Sheldon called as he took his reheated plate over to the coffee table to sit. "Penny, get this piece of paper out of my spot!"_

_ She rolled her eyes but quickly walked over and snatched up the paper, breaking the tape seal and opening it to find Leonard's nearly indecipherable handwriting hiding inside._

_ "His first weakness is a Harvey-Dent-esque inability to make decisions without some sort of logic to help him, though he doesn't flip a coin. His second is his Southern-style respect. Unless you're at war, he won't be opening notes and letters to you. So, I left this in plain sight._

_ "We vacated the apartment to let you guys continue your evening together without the joy of Howard Wolowitz. If Sheldon asks, we went to play chess in the park and we took our heavy coats and gloves. Don't tell him which park, I'm begging you._

_ "Enjoy your evening with Dr. Whack-a-doodle, Penny._

_ "Leonard'_

_ She smiled but felt like soon enough Sheldon was going to notice their deliberate attempts to leave the two of them alone together. Before her trip to the hospital, they rarely spent extended amounts of time together without the others present, not that it hadn't been fun, but it had hardly felt like this particular moment. Contrived, something others had decided would be good for them. But, Penny floundered, she and Sheldon had no idea what was good for them at the moment, so she had no idea why three socially inept geniuses thought they knew better, but she was learning to let go._

_ If anything good was happening to her growth-wise, the way she hoped it was happening to Sheldon, she was making great gains in patience and letting go. If it wasn't important to her, she could let it be important to him._

Her shift dragged on, but when she punched out and yanked Howard away from his perch at the bar, she was no less relieved to know it was over. He gave no clues on the drive to Bernadette's apartment, but promised they weren't going to make anything any _worse._ Penny couldn't honestly say she believed him, but she had no choice but to accept his offer for help. It was one thing to say she needed to give him space, to take things slowly, to ease him into it...and another to follow through on it when it would be so tempting to flaunt her newfound knowledge of all the things he loved until he snapped.

When she and Howard got out of her car at Bernadette's modestly-sized apartment building, she could hear a thumping bass completely surrounding her. Shaking her head, Penny led the way to Bernadette's door and pushed it open, almost wincing at the pure volume. Inside, a red-haired man with a set of headphones and an unlit cigarette hunched over two laptop computers and reached out a hand to start a turntable spinning. He looked up, a pleased smile flitting over his face.

The music turned down abruptly. "You must be Penny," the man greeted, lowering his headphones around his neck. "I'm Ian."

"You married into the Wolowitz family?" Penny asked incredulously.

Chuckling to himself, Ian nodded and started flipping switches; turntables stopped and the black light dangling over his mixing board flickered off. "I did. I technically converted, but neither me nor my blushing bride go to synagogue anymore. Don't tell your mother, Howie." Ian winked. "I heard you've got your eye on one of my esteemed cousin's friends."

"You haven't met him, have you?" Penny asked nervously, entering the apartment cautiously, convinced she should be open to the idea of going along with the whole scheme, but more inclined to bolt at the first sign of trouble.

Ian shook his head and took the headphones from around his neck, dropping them softly on top of his gear. "No, never. I've heard plenty about him, though."

Penny turned, shoving a finger in Howard's direction. "Explain!"

"Leonard and Raj are going to be here in ten minutes—Bernadette went to distract Sheldon." Howard lifted his hands in defense and smiled disarmingly. "We've got this covered, Penny. We take deception very seriously, especially when it comes to that neurotic--"

"Careful," she warned, lowering her hand reluctantly, and smoothed her skirt, looking for an open piece of furniture. It appeared, however, Ian had completely taken over her apartment, using every armchair and love-seat to hold various speakers, mixing boards, extension cords, and crates of records and 45s.

Penny dropped her purse to the floor and picked at a loose thread on her uniform shirt, worried that Sheldon felt abandoned, or confused, or worse—suspicious. Thankfully, she didn't have to wait very long for Leonard and Raj to burst inside the apartment.

Leonard checked the hallway, pushed Raj inside, and closed the door, locking it before throwing the chain on for good measure. He leveled Penny with a steady gaze and she had an overwhelming desire to hug him and thank him, to shower him in chaste kisses until he understood just how much it meant to her that he was both letting her go and helping her be with Sheldon, his frustrating, robotic, neurotic, and grating roommate. A man who was also his best friend.

She felt the start of tears prickling at the backs of her eyes, but Leonard looked over at Ian importantly, tossing him _String Theory for Dummies_ with an urgent grimace. "Ready, everyone?"

She listened to them intently, watching Raj carefully list reasons they though the plan would work, how they had coordinated everything, including mistletoe and music. There was no need to voice her concerns, because Howard ran interference and hushed her fears quietly, giving past examples and hypothesizing on that which had no precedent.

"So, after he's done all the prep-work, he'll join you at the party on Thursday," Leonard sat back from the sheet of paper he'd been writing on—an impromptu whiteboard. "I'll introduce you two to Sheldon—Ian, you can play it by ear what you say, but if it's something you don't understand or don't want to talk about with him, just deflect. Music, traveling, living in Detroit, anything. Penny, your job is to look fascinated, talk to him about all that, comic books, whatever else. Sheldon should boil over in about an hour." Leonard scribbled something in the upper left corner and sat back again, frowning at his work. "Raj?"

"At which point we ask you find him—we'll position him under the mistletoe. You kiss," he swallowed, trying not to picture the actual kiss, which would no doubt be very different from the harmless peck she'd treated Sheldon with over the piano last time, "and, if everything went correctly, he'll know enough to ask you out."

"If you're lucky, he'll save the museum for date number three," Howard intoned flatly and folded his arms, smiling like a fool. "So? Sound good?"

"I...I g-guess," she stuttered in response. "Do you think he'll actually ask me _out?_"

"We can plant the seeds all week—we have until Thursday." Howard waved his arm dismissively, laughing with a crooked grin. "It technically _is_ a non-optional social convention to allow the woman you love to be swept off her feet by a DJ from Detroit."

Ian frowned and cleared his throat pointedly, not needing to speak afterward. Penny watched him walk into the kitchenette and crack open a beer with his wedding ring, staring blankly into the sink while the residual beat of whatever he'd been working on coursed through him. She'd dated musicians before, but the usual spark of interest she felt when one of the curious enigmas breezed into the room was conspicuously absent.

"Is he going to be able to pull this off?" Penny whispered to Leonard.

Smiling, Leonard adjusted his glasses and nodded. "He was on his way to a doctorate in mathematics at a pretty good school over on the east coast. He knows what he's talking about for the most part. He dropped out to pursue his music career. That's where he and Sheldon end, for the purposes of this charade."

She was nervous but resigned. Though she knew she wasn't doing all she could to wake him up and make him smell the coffee, she was at a loss. Where to begin was the penultimate mystery; once that was determined, she could build a fairly sturdy foundation, but other than telling him to shut up and hug her, she had bupkis.

Ian removed his wedding band later that night, just before Penny left for home, and dropped it into Howard's waiting palm. They checked to see if he'd already developed a tan line, but he and his wife had only married a month ago and so other than a little line across his finger from the pressure of the ring on his skin, there was nothing. They declared their scheme a go and Penny chewed her tongue, wanting dearly to ask for another day before they were firmly decided, but it was too late.

When she got back to the apartment, she spotted Sheldon getting his mail and fetched hers, listening politely when he started chattering about his missing comrades and how he was sure they were lying to him when they said the party was going to be small. He was sorting through his letters when he stopped short of the fourth-floor landing and lifted a green envelope with glitter sprinkling out the sides.

"Whatchya got there?" she asked, her feet aching, her legs almost numb from the cold and the stress of standing all day.

"It's a Christmas card from my grandmother," he replied slowly.

"Well, what's so weird about that? Didn't she tell you she was going to be sending one? I definitely told you last night." Penny sighed and put her hand on her hip. "Sheldon, c'mon. I'm sure Leonard will be back any second now."

Sheldon held the card out to her, more glittering showering down from the slightly torn corner and Penny's eyes widened. It was addressed in beautiful handwriting, the kind that boasted of polishing school and etiquette classes, in purple ink. It was addressed to _Dr. Sheldon Cooper & Penny._

"Well," Penny spluttered uselessly. "I spoke to her on the phone. Maybe she knew we wouldn't be...maybe she knew I wasn't going home either. Did you tell her? Did your mother tell her? You guys _are_ throwing the party because I'm a little homesick. That makes sense, doesn't it?"

"She spoke to you yesterday. It arrived today. Yesterday was Sunday, and the United States Postal Service doesn't operate on Sundays, Penny. She sent this _before_ she spoke to you." He snatched the card back, looking horrified and offended. "She doesn't send cards to me _and_ Leonard. The box of letters in my room are to _me._ She can't write letters to you!"

"Sheldon, it's just a Christmas card. I'm sure...I'm sure..."

He tore open the envelope and the last of the glitter spilled out and all over his pants, but ignored it. Tugging the card out, he flipped it open, pretending he didn't notice the picture of the half-melted snowman on the front. Inside, the required religious sentiment was on the opposite panel, but on the blank side, she'd written him a note in the same purple ink, in the same flowing, elegant handwriting she and all the girls of her generation had learned.

He was finished before Penny could even lean to get a peek at whatever it was, and he folded the card shut, his cheeks flushing hotly. They stared at each other a moment before she held her hand out for the card, but he stuffed it back in the envelope and shook his head, muttering a half-hearted apology.

"Sheldon, come on. It was addressed to both of us, wasn't it?"

"I'm not supposed to let you read it until Christmas," he retorted dutifully and pinked around the cheeks again. "But only if you...I have to interject, I'm sorry. My family...they're..."

"They're?" Penny laughed gently. "They're what?"

"They're convinced that you're somehow a miracle brought on by my mother's prayer group, and that you're going to be a part of my 'happy New Year.'"

Her teasing smile fell a little and she stepped down so she was only one step above Sheldon, her eyes half-lidded with a patience just about worn thin. "And why wouldn't I be part of a joyful 2010, Sheldon?"

He dodged the question skillfully, answering, "I may give you the card Christmas morning if you kiss me underneath the mistletoe." The moment the words left his mouth he pinched his lips shut and looked at his shoes, finding his hands behind his back, clasping them together around letters, magazines, and postcards.

Penny smiled a little at his frustrated huff of air and took his chin in her hand, tilting his face up and kissing him gently on the lips before pulling back, her forehead resting on his. "Why wouldn't I?"

"It's not that I thought you wouldn't," he breathed, sounding more relaxed already. "It's that my grandmother knows you'll kiss me. Penny, _I_ don't even know when you're going to—"

She silenced him with another kiss, her mind on Leonard, Howard, Ian, and Raj. She hoped dearly their plan would work and she wouldn't have to worry about his anxieties. If they broke through his fears and got him to throw himself from the safety of solitude, there was no reason she couldn't admit she loved him, that she thought he might be able to love her back, and that she'd very much like to call him her boyfriend, as unimportant as that would probably seem to him.

He broke back with a huff of irritation. "You!"

"Me," she giggled and felt a smile spread over her face like butter melting over hot toast, and Sheldon growled, kissing her as if he didn't like it one bit, an arm coming out from behind him to slide around her waist. She made a surprised noise, pleased with this development, and drew away, lightly grazing over the back of his neck with her fingernails.

"What are you up to tonight?"

"Nothing," he replied immediately, though his cheek twitched, throwing half his face into a strange, frightening grin for just an instant.

A moment later she closed her apartment door and pushed the mail from Sheldon's limp hands, stalking him as he walked backwards, his breathing short, until the backs of his legs hit the edge of her couch and he sat heavily. Hitching her skirt, Penny took a deep breath, wondering if it would break his heart when she came to the party with Ian. She was sure he understood the relationship requirement that both parties had to be completely sure they were dating in order for one to feel truly cheated. He erased her unease with a hand that slid up the back of her shirt, finding bare skin and hesitantly brushing over it.

If she had ever doubted he was a fast learner, she certainly didn't tonight. His kisses were educated enough to make her forget he'd been an amateur not terribly long ago, and though he easily grew flustered and had to tilt his head away to gasp and blink around her apartment, disbelieving of it all. Occasionally he almost thought he was floating above himself, watching some strange doppelgänger of himself kissing a beautiful blonde girl who had scooted back to his knees and was tugging her shirt off over her head. When she crashed back against his lips, he crashed back into his body and sat up against her scantily clad torso and frantically slid his hands up her bare back, trying to speak but not sure what would be appropriate to say.

She paused, grinding to a halt as Sheldon relaxed a little and reached to smooth his shirts down, jumping a little when she withdrew her hand from the front of his shirt and rested her palm against the Superman symbol in the center of his chest. "Sheldon..."

"Penny?"

She cupped his chin, smiling at him encouragingly, surprised how at-ease they were with her in a skirt hiked up to her hips and no shirt, splay-legged on his lap while he fought to get his pulse down to a regular level and even out his erratic breathing. "Tell me I'm not...I don't know, _breaking_ you."

He shifted his hips a little and glanced down. "I don't _think_ so, but I have heard the occasional horror story. The spongy tissue in—"

"Oh, for _God's sake,_ Sheldon!" Penny squeezed his cheeks, forcing his chin back up, blushing hotly. "I'm not talking about _that,_ Christ!"

He flushed in return, feeling ridiculous, telling himself this was precisely why he preferred his own company, why he didn't go out of his way to find anyone else with whom to share the world. The only drawback was lack of recognition, and in the rare case he needed help, he didn't like the prospect of fending for himself. "Oh."

"I mean up here, Dr. Beautiful Mind." She tapped his temple and smiled carefully. "Because I want you to know...I'm not playing a game with you, Sheldon."

"A game?" he repeated, sounding confused. "What game might you play with me? I'm assuming we're not talking about 'Research Lab' or 'Halo' or any of those."

She took a deep breath to steady herself. "I'm not trying to lead you on, I'm not using you. Make sense now?"

Blinking at her, he felt absurdly distracted by the pressure of her still perched on his lap. Vaguely he knew his body was keen to perform a mating ritual, but he wasn't sure what proper protocol was for asking if that was even an option. So he pushed all his energy into listening to her, feeling his face heating up—he could also feel the beginnings of light perspiration.

"Make sense?" she asked again, desperate to make sure he at least understood that much.

He nodded a little. "As much as I can, I suppose."

"Okay, good." She inhaled sharply and couldn't help but add, "Because I don't want to be played with, either. And know that...know that a person can only take so much."

Thoroughly confused, Sheldon simply nodded again and was rewarded with a warm, almost entirely non-sexual kiss. The tiny part that was still designed to elicit a biological response him did a spectacular job. Penny broke away with a relaxed sigh and tucked her face under his chin, hugging him tightly.

She opened her mouth to tell him to hug her back, but sat up a little and engulfed her in a tight return embrace, sighing gently into her hair. After a spell, he squirmed again and held her shoulders at arm's length, giving her a crooked half-smile.

"I made plans for tomorrow seeing how I don't have work and I'll have to get up early. I probably should retire early."

Glancing at the time, she pouted her lips just barely. "It's only nine o' clock. You could stay over here for just a little longer, couldn't you?"

"I'd rather go read a little before I try to sleep." The unspoken part, the part he wasn't sure was appropriate to add was, _If I were to stay much longer, I don't think I would fall asleep at all tonight._

Penny climbed off his lap and picked up her shirt, moving swiftly toward her bedroom. "Goodnight, Sheldon." Her door snapped shut and Sheldon felt his lip curl. He almost slammed her door behind himself as he tore across the hall to his apartment, mail in hand. Pressing his back against his closed door, he screwed his face up into a snarl and turned, lifting a fist to punch the closed door, but stopped himself at the last minute, thinking of how much it'd probably hurt.

Leonard lifted his eyebrow. "Where were _you?_"

"Over at Penny's, though I _clearly_ shouldn't have let her invite me inside," Sheldon spat, feeling much like he did whenever she admitted she didn't know what a USB port was, or something similar.

Standing up in a hurry, Leonard reached up, clutching his cheeks. "What happened now? What happened, Sheldon?"

"First she tried to tell me she wasn't _playing games,_ whatever that means, and then she told me she didn't like to be played with, and she'd been kissing me again. I have no idea what she was blathering on about, and then I needed to go to bed because I'm going to meet my sister tomorrow early in the morning and..." His rage abruptly subsided and he opened the door a crack, looking over his shoulder at Leonard's confused frown. "Should I go apologize?"

"For...what, exactly? Catch me up."

"Oh, never mind. You're surprisingly useless, Leonard, honestly." He threw open the door and marched out, knocking three times on Penny's door and calling her name.

Penny didn't open the door, but called through it, "Just go to bed, Sheldon. I'm not in the mood."

"I came to apologize." He rested his forehead on the door. "I'm not sure what I did this time, but nevertheless, I'd like to attempt to reconcile before I go away for the entirety of the day tomorrow."

She opened the door, her face speckled with red, makeup gone, her eyes glittering angrily. "Just go to bed, Sheldon. You and I both know everything will work out just fine. Until then, sweat it out."

He stuck out his lower lip, making one of his whining noises like he'd just remembered the new neighbors on the fifth floor, or that Siam Palace was going to be under new management starting in March. "Why do you insist on making me suffer like this?"

"Because," her voice cracked a little, "you manage to make me second-guess myself and feel like the most beautiful, semi-important thing in your life in the _same breath._ I'll admit I'm not being mature, but I'd like you to spend at least the next five minutes before you fall asleep thinking about how it makes me _feel,_ yes _feel,_ when you tell me you'd rather go read a pile of comic books and sit alone in your room than spend ten more minutes with me. It took me three years to get you to admit I wasn't an 'uninteresting simpleton' from the Midwest." She inhaled sharply and laughed gently to herself, shaking her head. "If last night was the best you have to offer...God, maybe I'm stupid, but I would take that. But I have this feeling sometimes like I'll only get that once in a blue moon."

She closed the door when he stared blankly at her and by the time he got to his bedroom and fell across it, shoes still on, he thought he could hear a slight rattle in his chest like he was about to squeak. He blinked a few times, frustrated. After the frustration for Penny ebbed away, it attacked anew, focused on him. He sat up and stared at his reflection in the small mirror on his dresser, wondering if he had it in him to be everything Penny deserved, everything she wanted.

When Leonard passed by Sheldon's room on his way to bed, he paused and heard Sheldon sniff quietly and cough. As a preliminary, evasive maneuver, he packed his overnight emergency bag and hurried over to Stephanie's apartment, worried he would be babysitting Sheldon, who was on sabbatical, in love (though in denial), and sick.

Penny glanced one last time at her bedroom door and heaved a sigh, knowing she had taken her time long enough. Resolving to call Sheldon's mother in the morning to double-check with her about this whole Ian business, she felt an odd peace settle in her.

"Sometimes," she said aloud to her empty apartment. "The only way to get through to you is to knock you around a little bit. That doesn't mean I like it." Her eyes watered once more. She never thought she'd ever fall in love with a man who obviously had feelings for her but was unable to access them with any consistency. It seemed impossible she would be attracted to someone so guarded and cold.

But he warmed, and when he did, it was well worth it. Closing her eyes, she hoped he wasn't too upset tomorrow and wrapped her arms around an extra pillow, her mind drifting over Howard, Raj, and Leonard. Her heart swelled and she smiled despite the sick knot in the pit of her stomach. At least she was blessed with an invaluable friendship. No one could deny that.


	8. Explanation

Author's Note: So this has been written for a few days now, but I've been toying with where to leave off with it, and figuring out how much longer I want the story to actually go one. I myself hate stories where the characters finally get their shit together and have some heart-to-heart, the end. I have read some excellent stories with that formula, of course, but the journey is far from over when a person like Sheldon acknowledges he has emotions. So, I'll keep you guys posted on what's going on in this ridiculous noggin of mine. Suffice to say I'll be lingering in this fandom even when this particular plot bunny has been exhausted.

Read, review, and prosper.

* * *

Leonard tentatively knocked on Sheldon's door for the third time in as many minutes, looking back helplessly at Howard and Raj, who were holding game controllers in one hand, and ornaments in the other. If he didn't come out soon, they were going to decorate the tree and forego Halo Night, which had technically started fifteen minutes ago.

Running out of options, Leonard tried the doorknob and found it locked. Biting his lip gently, he called Sheldon's name and jiggled the knob, reminding him of the time and asking if he felt all right. Since Monday, Sheldon had claimed illness but hadn't been his usual insufferable self. In fact, Leonard grudgingly noted, he'd stayed pretty much out of everyone's way and spent hours on his laptop, relocating to his bedroom fairly early. Penny hadn't been around at all, working a ton of double shifts to cover the time off she was taking for New Year's Eve and the following two days.

She'd stopped by twenty minutes ago when Sheldon had still been in the living room in his spot, staring at his laptop blankly, as if it were keeping secrets. She'd dropped off four neatly wrapped packages with bows, tags, and candy canes. Upon seeing the bag of decorations, she'd promised to stop by as soon as her early shift at the Cheesecake Factory was over and help set up for the party.

Without saying a word to Sheldon, she'd left for her apartment, not upset, but not necessarily eager to see if he'd follow her to try to make up with her again. He'd packed up his laptop, straightened up his area in the living room, rinsed out a bowl of cereal—half-eaten and disgustingly soggy—before going in his room. He returned a moment later with three packages, wrapped in what Leonard could only guess was the 'Entertainment' section of _The New York Times._ He faked a cough and excused himself to his room again, this time locking the door rather than pacing around the main room while Leonard set up for Halo Night without Penny.

"Sheldon, c'mon, buddy. We can't play teams without you!" Leonard called, flattening his palm against the door loudly. "She's just busy, I promise. She doesn't hold grudges very long," he half-whispered against the door. "You're not giving up, are you?"

The door swung open and Sheldon's steely glare loomed over him. "What do you mean _give up?_ What am I _giving up?_ I'm simply keeping the virus I'm harboring away from you so you don't suffer the same symptoms I do."

"Lovesickness isn't communicable—none of us are going to suddenly start feeling what you are," Leonard replied calmly and pointed to the living room. "Quit moping around! If it's annoying when _I_ whine and pout, know that it's a thousand times worse when it's you!"

Sheldon squinted, opening the door wide enough for Leonard to get a good look at him. He wanted to ask what the hell had _happened,_ because Sheldon did look sort of...sickly. He was thin, pale, and had bags under his eyes; his hair was uncharacteristically mussed and his clothes were rumpled. It was as if he were wearing Monday's pajamas still, which made Leonard swallow hard.

Inhaling slowly, a slight rattle audible, Sheldon gripped the door jamb tightly, feeling weak and tired. "I appear to have caught it from _you._"

Ignoring him, Leonard folded his arms. "Remember when I said I thought Penny liked you?"

Sheldon made a derisive sound and tried to flee within to his room but Leonard gripped the doorknob and gritted his teeth.

"She _does._ Can you tell, Sheldon? Tell me you suspected, that you're picking up on it a little?"

His cheek twitching, Sheldon simply shrugged and tugged on his sleeves. "Her pupils dilate...when she looks at me." He narrowed his eyes abruptly at his friend. "A sign of attraction—almost as disturbing as what _you_ suggest."

"Ah, so you've determined there's a difference between a biological imperative and actual affection?" Leonard asked sarcastically and went to stick his finger under Sheldon's nose, to complete his 'training' of the inept, lovesick puppy slouched in front of him but Sheldon bared his teeth, looking oddly close to losing his temper in a violent, angry way.

"Yes, I _know_ there's a difference! I didn't ask to understand this stupid relationship paradigm—we appear to exist in a limbo state between friendship and lovers and I'm not inclined to choose one side or the other because she disrupts _every _part of my life regardless where she falls. I'm not whatever it is Penny needs, nor am I equipped to learn what I _should_ be. All I'm sure of is my mother and grandmother think she's a gift from God and I don't even know how I got here." He stared around, breathless, bewildered, and reached up, gripping his cheeks like he was about to fall and curl into a small ball, unable to comprehend how everything had gotten away from him so quickly.

Leonard jumped on damage control and reached, ignoring Sheldon's flinch when he clapped his hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "What you're feeling isn't...unique, okay? I'm sorry to say it, but you're not the first poor sap who had a plan and had to put it aside for a while because some girl snuck up on him. It happens all the time."

"False! This has _never_ happened to me before!"

"Because you never let it!" Howard shouted from the other room, marching importantly up the hall, paused by the bathroom door with a scowl. "You have no one to blame but yourself, Sheldon. And you can't undo, so just buck up and be a man. You're _trying,_ as weird as it is."

A look of abject terror, of betrayal and uncertainty played across his twitching face and he started to shrink away from Leonard's friendly hand to curl into the safety of solitude again when Howard lunged forward and slung an arm through Sheldon's, yanking him into the hall, ignoring the yelps of imagined pain coming from the misleadingly wiry physicist he hauled to the living room.

"We're gonna set you straight before Penny decides to take a page out of _your_ book and give up on her feelings. She'll take what she can get—it's what we _do_ when we can't have what we want." He shoved Sheldon into his seat and got a wild look on his face like he was about to start screaming and tearing out his hair. "For God's _sake,_ Sheldon! You might be the only one of us with a chance at this whole thing! Do you understand that?"

Leonard raised a finger to ask why _he_ was suddenly the weakest link among them, why Sheldon was suddenly their hope for visiting a buddy's wife and kids in rural California and he was thrown aside. He wanted to remind them he had Stephanie again, that things were going great this time around, that they were taking an appropriate pace, but he didn't want to distract Sheldon's already unstable brain.

"We'll help you," Raj added suddenly, hearing the silence closing in on them, and sat next to Sheldon, dropping the candy cane he'd been working on onto the table loudly. "Just trust us, okay?"

"I don't _want_ to be like you, though," Sheldon murmured, rubbing his elbows determinedly. "Until recently, I was completely befuddled by your constant pursuit of the opposite sex. To be perfectly honest, I still am. My only snag so far has been...her."

"Penny's not a snag," Leonard stood up taller, pursing his lips a little, getting defensive on her behalf. "You're rubbing off on each other in the best of ways—believe me. I can tell!"

Howard's lecherous smile made a brief appearance. "You're rubbing _on_ each other in the best of ways, too, am I right?"

Sheldon blushed scarlet and curled his lip a little. "Watch your mouth, Wolowitz."

Leonard fell to a crouch in front of Sheldon, eyes widening. "What are you feeling, Sheldon?"

"Like I'm being forced to try out for basketball team. I _appear_ to have all the necessary skills—I'm tall, I've got an incredibly accurate depth perception, and I possess the strength necessary to put the ball in the basket. But, deep in my pathology I harbor several irrevocably terrible flaws no basketball team would want to suffer through. I can't run—my asthma acts up. I hate my teammates, my ankles are weak, my wrists worse." His face got redder as he spoke, his Southern accent returning in full force. "I'd be the first picked up in the draft, but the next season I'd be on my ass and out of a job faster'an y'all could say, 'But, Coach!'"

Leonard was quiet a moment, waiting for one of the others to interject, but they didn't. Finally, looking at his shoes, Leonard cleared his throat quietly and laced his fingers together. "You really think that, Sheldon?"

"Of course I do, Leonard," Sheldon sounded one more idiotic suggestion away from snapping and going completely berserk.

"Where's your data?" Howard asked in a flat, needling tone. "Past experience? Is this pure conjecture, or did Penny say something?"

Sheldon made a face like he'd just smelled something exceedingly unpleasant. "No, but she has kept herself scarce since Monday when I committed my latest infraction. I can't help but offend her—it's only wise to keep away."

Raj, Leonard, and Howard all traded looks, worried, and then Howard took a deep breath and forced a smile, trying to look encouraging, "Look," he started off in a rich baritone, a non-threatening measure that immediately put Sheldon's hackles up. "It's true you're certifiably insane, that you're a pain in the ass, and that I cannot for the _life_ of me imagine the hot blonde across the hall from you wanting _anything_ romantic to come of her interactions with you. But," he swallowed and blinked, smiling with more teeth this time, "you owe it to yourself to roll in the mud with the pigs just _once._ You know you're going to get dirty, but if you join us down here, you'll know exactly what it _feels_ like."

Sheldon sighed, looking at his long fingers, and nodded to himself sadly. "What do I do?"

Leonard exhaled in relief, making Howard and Raj spin to look at him in surprise as he started to talk in hurried, rushed tones. Making things worse, Sheldon started taking notes, and then started to nod, and then started to smile that eerie, evil smile of his that said he was anticipating victory.

***

Penny released a long breath and looked once again at her outfit, twirling once, craning her neck over her shoulder to make sure she could see the low scoop of the back of her dress one last time. Adjusting a strap, she bit her lip, and nodded. It worked. The dark, evergreen color really set off her natural complexion, made her eyes pop, and accented her makeup in the softest, most natural way. She found herself quite unable to resist the prospect of looking festive and draped a necklace of tiny red Christmas lights around her neck and clipped a red Penny Blossom in her hair. She fluffed her waves and wrinkled her nose, knowing the necklace didn't match the sophistication of her outfit, but a quick change of shoes and she'd look like she'd at least tried to tie it all together.

Swirling a drink behind her, Ian nodded with a wolfish smile. "Looks good."

"Thanks, I'm almost ready." She promised, looking at the nearest clock. "Will you check to see if anybody is over there?"

"I don't think I'm supposed to make an appearance without you," Ian muttered and handed her the clutch purse she was frantically searching for. "We're only half an hour late. That's fashionable where I come from."

"The club scene on Detroit has a fashionably late policy?" she asked in surprise and smiled at him, thinking how she would have helplessly fallen for his effortless charm in the past, married or not.

Ian chuckled and tugged the collar of his Green Lantern t-shirt. "No one wants to be the first one at a party. No one wants to be the first one at the concert hall, dancing alone in the strobe lights while the fog machine completely obscures the rest of the 'crowd.' It's human nature to want company, to hate feeling totally alone."

Penny bit her lip again, thinking of Sheldon and his constant desire to be alone, hidden from human contact. It was funny, she thought, that the one man with enough power to keep the rest of the human population always ended up spending time with her. He had the manners, humor, and compassion to be a hermit, which was his ultimate desire for the most part, and yet it seemed to him completely impossible not to have friends. Who would revive him when he choked on popcorn in the theater? Kill the spiders in the bathroom? Bring him the good mustard from the Korean market?

Ian held out a tube of lip gloss. "If you keep doing that, you're going to have pink teeth and no lips."

She snatched it from him with an insincere grunt of gratitude before reapplying the spot she'd destroyed. Smiling at her innocently, Ian put his hand on her waist and shook his head, looking at the pair of them in her mirror. She had to admit, even if she felt absolutely nothing for the musician behind her, they looked good together. Like they made sense.

He wore a nice pair of dark blue jeans, a belt with a plain silver buckle, and a red long-sleeved shirt under the Green Lantern shirt, something that made Penny uneasy but had been Howard's idea and he'd _insisted_ it stay. Ian, his dark hair in a lovable, ruffled style that always seemed to work on the confident, young, and sexy generation, had a natural charm about him that made it impossible not to find something fascinating to talk about.

"You know, it'd be easier to woo _you_ tonight than Sheldon." She inhaled sharply, feeling like she was about to walk out on stage and deliver a monologue for a crowd of scrutinizing casting directors. "Married, successful, and socially competent."

Leaning over her shoulder more, Ian slipped his hand more around her waist and pinched her stomach just barely. "Relax, Penny. You look gorgeous. You're already halfway there, right?"

And right there, she remembered why Sheldon was so unique, so utterly superior. It wasn't that Ian's comment was offensive or off-base in any way, it just went to show how shallow men could be, and she found Ian very sensitive, very honest and genuine. What he would never understand fully, she supposed, was that a woman's appearance, to the right man, would never be 'half' of the attraction factor. She assumed over time she had become more attractive to him, just as he had to her. Before he'd seemed gangly, severe, and awkward looking. She'd called him a praying mantis and almost been sick to her stomach seeing him that silly Flash costume.

And he'd known, after some time, that she was pretty in her own way. She was too attractive to be good at video games. She stuck out when they were in the comic book store and he would loiter near her sometimes, when Captain Sweatpants was giving her the once-over. Intelligence was much more important to him, though; no matter how much prettier she became in his eyes, she was still a little dumb and with a relatively short attention span. But, and she finally put her shoulders back and found a natural source of confidence and certainty, there was hope for her. And, like Leonard said, she was the only woman in his universe, the only one he'd bothered to let in.

"Ready, Princess?" Ian asked as he finally moved away from her and slipped his necessary false credentials in his wallet. All Howard's idea—a Justice League of America membership card, a half-punched visitor's card to a museum in Chicago Penny had never been to, a library card with his photo—not faked—from the University of Michigan. He had another, from his graduate studies, from Princeton, tucked behind his credit card.

Penny put her cell phone, her digital camera, and a pack of gum in her tiny purse and forced the zipper shut, slipping the strap around her wrist. Shaking the last of her nerves from her wrist out of habit, she nodded, turned off the bathroom light, and exited her room, sliding her arm through the crook Ian present before putting on her face for the evening. She _glowed._

"You're going to love the decorations," Penny gushed as they locked her apartment behind themselves. "Sheldon was going nuts for a while, but then he really got into it. I went over last night and he was in this impossibly good mood. Did you know most traditional Christmas trees are edible? The needles are high in fiber and vitamin C."

Snorting and shaking his head, Ian lifted his hand and knocked loudly on the door, shooting her a goofy smile. It was almost as if he'd forgotten already what it was like to still be in that awful phase of finding the happy middle ground where relationships were healthiest. A success tonight would lay a wonderful foundation.

Raj opened the door, holding a mostly empty glass of eggnog and smiled lazily. "You're late."

"Just on time, my friend." Ian produced a bottle of Peach Schnapp's from behind his back, surprising even Penny as he winked. "Do you have orange juice?"

"We _do!"_ Raj laughed and held out his arm. "Come on in—somebody brought a bunch of cookies and somebody else brought fudge and candy canes. We're sending everyone to the dentist tomorrow..."

Penny kissed his cheek, messing up her new coat of lip gloss, but Raj just beamed at her, looking a little like the old shadow of him wanted to return and become silent, but he knew the dress, the smile, the glow was all for Sheldon. Besides, he still had the eggnog if he forgot she was essentially taken. He closed the door and moved out of the way when Yvette and a handful of Howard's visiting friends resumed a game of darts, laughing. Someone had put on a Christmas album and Leonard was in the kitchen looking dejectedly at a plate of yogurt-dipped pretzels.

Penny steered Ian toward the kitchen, surprised with how many people were milling around in the small apartment. Nearly everyone Penny knew from Pasadena was there—Bernadette and several of the friendlier waitresses from the Cheesecake Factory were gathered around Howard, actually _laughing_ at something he was saying. She wanted to thank him for not scaring everyone she knew in the greater California area, but restrained herself, forcing a lovesick look toward Ian.

Her ears always seemed to find his voice, no matter where he was in the room. He never bothered to whisper, and if he had something private to say, he'd generally pull her away from the group for a minute, but Sheldon was not one to keep his voice particularly low. She heard him squawking away in the kitchen, complaining to Leonard about the day after, when they would all end up cleaning after this party on Christmas morning.

"As much as I loathe it, my mother _does_ make me call her every Christmas morning so I can hear her open the gifts I send home." Penny turned her head to find Sheldon's familiar figure and watched him gesticulate wildly toward the bathroom as he continued, "If _anyone_ vomits in that bathroom, it being your idea, I say it's _your_ duty to clean it!"

"Sure, Sheldon, what-_ever._" Leonard held up a stack of plastic cups. "Would you put those over on the card table? Yvette is bringing punch."

"But I thought Yvette was out of town and that's why we had to throw the party?" Sheldon's forehead wrinkled.

Penny spun quickly, tucking herself in next to Ian's warm chest snugly, putting her mask back on as several co-workers and friends appeared and introduced themselves. She lost herself for nearly an hour in chit-chat, repeating the 'backstory' Leonard had developed for Ian and Penny, for when they were asked how they met, how she'd been asked out. Finally taking a break, Penny removed herself from Ian's arm and made her way to the snack table and looked over what was left.

Leonard expertly weaved his way through the throngs of people and smiled weakly at Howard, who winked exaggeratedly, turning back to put his arm around Bernadette's waist. Finding Sheldon, Leonard looked around and saw Penny enjoying a rare moment alone by the food table, staring blankly at a dish of deviled eggs. He sat heavily beside his silent friend and leaned onto his elbows, resting on his knees, and glared.

Lifting his chin from his hand, Sheldon lifted an eyebrow. "Can I help you?"

"What happened to telling Penny how you feel?"

"It's hardly the time or the place. Even _I_ know that." Sheldon inspected his nails, wondering if it was too early to partake in his ritualistic bedtime activities, clipping his nails, brushing his teeth, washing his face. "Besides, she brought a date."

Leonard smiled. "Yeah, he's a musician from Michigan. He was one semester away from a degree in mathematics, too. From Princeton."

Sheldon craned his neck, looking hatefully at Ian, who chose that moment to produce his Justice League of America card to a group of squealing girls. Faintly, Leonard and Sheldon heard him remind them that Mark Hamill had the hands-down _best_ Joker laugh in all the Batman television and film forays. Sheldon made fists with his hands.

"I'm sure they're not involved. Not like that, anyway," Leonard placated. "You know Penny. She doesn't like to come to these things alone."

"If she didn't want to be alone, she could have attached herself to your hip, or mine. As she usually does when we end up at social gatherings together," Sheldon moped, inspecting his fingernails again, wanting to clip them so badly he almost excused himself.

Leonard sighed. "Come on, Sheldon. Try to enjoy yourself, okay? And just...wait. Look at it like this—she brought a math-minded, comic book reading, superhero shirt wearing _geek_ who just happens to channel his nerdy powers into the disc jockey world."

"He's the diamond who doesn't have the good grace to hide in the rough, Leonard," Sheldon replied flatly, rubbing his palms over his thighs. "I'm going to bed."

"Stephanie is coming later," Leonard blurted, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm going to be preoccupied, and you gave Penny the impression that she...annoys you. That you don't want to spend your time with her. Her bringing a date is an out for you, but if you decide to have _fun_ tonight and show her you can play nice..."

Penny returned to Ian's side, finding him standing behind the couch, perusing the more public of the boys' comic book collection, and traced a finger over the can of peanut brittle Sheldon stashed his emergency cash in. Ian pointed to the mistletoe above them and Penny felt her heart drop into her stomach. She let him kiss her; it was a polite but wildly intimate kiss, something that insinuated interest. Paralyzed, she was unable to respond more than closer her eyes and tighten her hands into fists, holding her wrists shoulder level, inches from his body. Afterward, she smiled weakly, wanting to cry.

Sheldon spun away from the scene and realized he was breathing heavily. His entire body felt ill somehow, like it was completely rebelling from existence itself. His mind, for one precious moment, was completely blank, and then the grief, terror, and rage came crashing down and he hated himself for assuming so much and doing so little.

"What can I do, Leonard? What can I _possibly_ do?"

Penny put her hand against Ian's chest as he moved closer, grinning encouragingly. "This wasn't a good idea. I haven't even _spoken_ to him since we decorated yesterday. I panicked Monday because he wanted to go to bed instead of staying up to sit with me." She rolled her eyes. "He's so deliberate, I have to think everything he does is intentional..."

Ian smoothed his hand helplessly over her arm. "Hey, please, Penny...don't get upset. The night's not over. From what Howard tells me, he's absolutely crazy about you. Mostly crazy, but some of it if not most of it is for you." He smiled and touched her chin, tilting her head up a little. "We can switch the game, but we can't quit. At this point, _I'm _invested."

Laughing carefully, Penny nodded and reached to wiped away the tear she thought she felt escaping from her glittering eye and gave a start when Sheldon, looking faint, starved, and oddly, sexily determined, inserted himself between the two of them. She gawked when he stuck his elbow into Ian's stomach and pushed him away.

"Why did you bring him?" Sheldon demanded, not bothering to acknowledge Ian's bellow of surprise as he nearly tripped over one of Penny's friends and knocked over the punch bowl.

Startled, Penny picked at the straps of her evergreen dress and shrugged gently. "I dunno, Sheldon...you guys are doing so much for me and I didn't want to spend all night being the center of attention. It's not a party for _me_ this way. I'm just another face in the crowd, here with a nice guy I met waiting tables."

Sheldon shook his head, getting some color on his face as he angered. "That's particularly ridiculous, even given _your_ track record, Penny. We went through this effort for you. If you didn't want to wander this party alone, you could have informed me. You know I'm no fan of these social gatherings—I stick out like a sore thumb, to borrow my mother's phrasing."

"I figured you'd just ask me to leave you alone at some point, when you got tired of being out with all the neanderthals," she muttered, feeling meek as he shot a warning glare at Ian, who didn't bother pressing the taller man for answers, backing off with a grumble.

"Penny, I'm _sorry_ I'm so chronically misunderstood. I don't know what's appropriate to say, if it's acceptable I'm so angry right now, but emotions are the bane of my existence. They make no sense. I abhor them." He inhaled shakily and seemed to relax. "Send him away. Tell him you're unavailable for the evening."

Her heart racing, Penny shook her head. "But I am. I'm available."

Fidgeting, his cheek twitching, Sheldon finally lost his bravado and quietly asked, "Will you accompany me to this stupid party, Penny? _Please?"_

_"There's a psychological term my recent intern has been throwing around; 'lovemap.' Have you heard of it?"_

_ Sheldon gently dropped a tea-bag into an empty cup and looked up at her, unimpressed. He had thought she would have left the topic alone when he hadn't responded well before, but he found a lack of upfront frankness often put him in more hot water than expressing his concerns._

_ "Our interactions with family, friends, and others we may love in our lives shape who we will love and feel attracted to in the future." After a long pause, Sheldon added, "Please do not take that as an invitation to pursue a discussion on my sexual proclivities. I have no interest in taking stock of my possible zoophilic or homosexual tendencies."_

_ "No, of course not." Beverly looked over the tops of her glasses as Sheldon fetched the singing tea kettle. "I mean to leave it to you to do the exploring. I have no doubt a man with your mind will realize exactly what his 'deal' is. Isn't that how Penny put it?"_

_ He spilled a little bit of the hot water on the counter and put the kettle down, losing his interest in preparing himself the beverage. "I try to ignore her."_

_ "It's a common Freudian misinterpretation of sexual desire, to think that one seeks a suitable replacement for his or her father or mother. We select characteristics instinctively, knowing something in our parents was conducive to procreation. As for the emotional side of things, that's unique. We form our lovemaps as infants and development ceases around age 6. You, with your mother and father, have formed a very clear and very uneasy lovemap. Have you ever thought about that?"_

_ He hadn't and he informed her had no desire to. She had informed him of her need to use the bathroom and walked stiffly from the room._

"Sheldon..." Penny finally started to reply, her eyes watering again. She wanted to find the endless source of strength she always managed to dredge up when she was in some sort of physical pain, but this was different.

He walked away, all knees and elbows, and Penny blinked in surprise, her tears disappearing as if they hadn't threatened to fall at all. Inhaling sharply, she looked at Ian, confusion written on her face as he neared, his jaw tight.

"Just wait," he whispered, hiding a smile, and Penny frowned when she saw familiar forearms invade her field of vision, once again relegating Ian to a secondary position. She stared at Sheldon's heaving chest a moment, wondering why he was so wild, so obviously flustered and uncomfortable when _he_ was the one actively doing anything to make the evening so dramatic.

She followed the shape of him, wishing dearly he could be more lenient with her, that he would let just a little bit more of her slide through his defenses, but she could only count the miracles he allowed her as blessings for now. She followed the curve of his surprisingly firm arm up to his extended forearm, his delicate but masculine wrist, and long fingers, where he desperately clutched a sprig of mistletoe like a final lifeline.

Her eyes fell to his face and he groped, found the back of her neck, and crushed her to him, kissing her with a passion that would have peeled the paint off the walls were she not in a room full of her closest friends. In the silence that fell around them, Ian slipped from the apartment with a wry grin. Howard scrabbled to change the CD, and Leonard bit the back of his hand to hide a simultaneous grin and gag. Raj jumped when one of Penny's friends slipped her hand in his, sighing at the romance unfolding.

When Sheldon released her, panting as he dropped his arms to his sides, Penny cleared her throat softly, feeling like she was swimming through cotton.

"Let's go outside for a minute," she whispered, sounding hoarse, and Sheldon wordlessly nodded, following her through the crowd to the door, where they exited together, Penny almost tripping over her own feet as Sheldon's hand came to a rest on the small of her back.

She stopped by the elevator, dropping her clutch purse to the ground. It took all her willpower not to yank him to her and try to get his pants off through his mouth. Tonight was less about the smoldering sexual tension she'd achingly acknowledged in the past few weeks. Tonight the careful dance would end with a bow; whether or not the show was a comedy or a tragedy had yet to be determined.


	9. Reciprocation

Author's Note: OMGOMGOMG. OMG. Sorry. This just suddenly occurred to me: this is the final chapter (sequel, perhaps, forthcoming). It just sort of happened and I realized the wrap-up was in there, and I did leave enough room for either assumptions to float on the horizon, or what have you. Basically that's a lot of me rambling to say, "This particular story is done. For now."

**On an unrelated note, if you haven't seen the movie "Showgirls," read smut, or seen mildly dirty words before, turn back now and preserve your innocence. You've been warned.**

THANKSSS REVIEWERSSSS! As always, your awesome feedback kept me purring like a kitty-cat all this time. To you who I've kept up late, or made late to class, or stolen from boyfriends/fiancés, whatever...I apologize, but only half-heartedly. Less than three to all of you.

* * *

This was the part that always escaped her. She could picture the fighting, the glares, the way his face contorted when he had no words to describe the wrath building inside him. She could dish it back twice as hard as he did and, when she wearied of making the boys uncomfortable, she could call Mary Cooper who, for some unknown reason, _liked_ her.

But this? Unless it started as a fight, Penny didn't see Sheldon keeping the momentum he needed to crest the gentle hill they'd been climbing for weeks now and roll down the other side. She needed him to admit he cared for her, even if it was just as much as he hoped she wasn't horrible maimed or killed in a car accident tomorrow.

So, inhaling, Penny folded her arms and set her jaw firmly.

"You're going to have to explain what just happened to me, Sheldon, because I think _I've_ been pretty clear." She could hardly believe the even, calm words had left her mouth even after she'd heard them.

Sheldon's lips pursed. "I believe we owe each other an explanation. It was _you_ who kissed me first, Penny. I know _now_ I would be unsatisfied with our extremely odd relationship, but the paradigm shift, the crisis you created, I can't take credit for that."

At her blank stare, he threw his hands in the air. "Honestly, sometimes I wonder if you're listening at all. Somehow you remember just enough to pleasantly surprise me, but _really,_ Penny. Thomas Kuhn, in the '70s, published a book called _The Structure of Scientific Revolutions._ In it, he compiled a totally revolutionary way of understanding the scientific universe wherein he proposed revolutions were products of the current paradigm, or rules of understanding, failing to account for anomalies in the scientific community. These anomalies would eventually pile up and force a state of crisis, and a revolution would inevitably have to follow, shifting the paradigm.

"_You_ kissed me. You created the first anomaly. It has snowballed into a number of anomalies, and we have arrived at a crisis point." He folded his arms delicately, indicating he was done, but helplessly unfolded them, not feeling defensive quite yet.

Penny lowered her chin, wishing she hadn't pulled at the loose thread of Sheldon Cooper, toying with the emotional response she was getting from him. He had unraveled exquisitely, but she couldn't help but wonder if she'd miss the warmth of him when he was a complete...whatever he was.

Despite her desire to answer his question (_Except what was his question? How long ago did he even ask it? Oh, God, I'm losing it already..._), she was swimming in a sea of words that literally held no meaning with her. Other than hearing endless repetitions of it in Sheldon and Leonard's apartment, she had never heard it. It was _she_ who incorrectly used it at work now, just like she dropped _Star Trek_ references and whispered about Aristotle over the phone to her aunt.

Vaguely, as she stared at his patient expression and watched as it faded helplessly to one of short-tempered annoyance.

"I'll go first." Sheldon sighed, sounding a touch irritated she was suddenly at a loss for words. "My motives tonight were respectable, understandable. I was affronted you brought a stranger to our gathering—a gathering which is being held in your honor, I might add. I was frustrated you were still angry I excused myself on Monday night when I had to retire early to meet my sister the next morning. I wanted you to see I valued your company, even if I manage to convince you otherwise on a daily basis." He straightened, clearing his throat nervously, knowing Leonard would be going insane hearing one of his many nervous tics kick in.

"Penny, against all odds, I have developed strong feelings for you. I wish it weren't true, and I know you feel the same, but I've found proper protocol is to, forgive me if I'm not using the phrase right, but I believe I'm expected to 'get the girl.'"

She actually might have fainted for a split second, but she caught herself when her balance skewed so much she could feel the earth shift beneath her. Looking up, she wasn't surprised to see his expression was flat, unimpressed.

"Your turn."

She swallowed and nodded, wanting to sit down desperately. "I brought a date because...because I was running out of options. Sheldon, short of saying something that would have scared you off forever, I'd said _everything._"

"You reciprocate my feelings," Sheldon clarified, and seemed to sway on his feet as well. "Against all odds."

Her heart settled in her throat comfortably, as if she were confessing a murder and not her love for the good doctor before her. "I do."

Tensing suddenly, Sheldon reached and found his cheeks, looking horrified. "I have no idea where to go from here, Penny! To be honest, I only got as far as getting that insufferable man out of my apartment and away from here." He dropped his hands. "One would think we would form some sort of contractual agreement."

"And a _normal_ person would think, 'Gee, I just found out she loves me back!' and kiss her," Penny grumbled, finding her sure footing. The Big Ole Five was back and she couldn't say she was sad to see it return. Gripping his shoulders, she stood on her toes, not tall enough even in her tallest red pumps, and kissed him.

A soft sound she was becoming familiar with escaped him and he opened his eyes in brief surprise before somehow _knowing_ the evening wasn't going to end with her kissing him just the one last time and pushing him toward his apartment gently with a muttered goodnight.

She unlocked her door, pressing his back against it while he helplessly held her purse, wondering how the tables had turned so quickly, but the minute they were inside, she asked him to help her unzip the infernal contraption she was wearing and while his fingers fumbled with the dainty zipper, she expertly undid his belt and had his pants around his ankles before he could recite the fourth digit of pi.

"Puh-Penny!" he exclaimed after a moment, literally about to have a conniption fit that she was trying to help him out of his shoes _without_ untying them. Swallowing, wishing he could just forget about this for one moment, he let out a tortured sound and Penny, finding his eyes, squeezed his cheeks in a single hand and planted her palm in the center of his chest.

"No. If you're trying, you don't need to apologize, Sheldon. When was the last time the sun asked the moon to apologize for reflecting its rays on the ocean?"

"Never. In fact, the ocean thought it was beautiful enough to hold up a mirror," he replied mindlessly, vaguely thinking it sounded like something one of Missy's favorite singers might have said. She dropped to her knees and undid the knots on his sneakers, standing and holding her hair off her shoulders. He fumbled and slid the zipper down, stepping on the heels of his shoes as he did so. She stood on the toes of his socks and shrugged the straps of her dress off, eyes positively feral as she started walking him toward her bedroom.

Her dress pooled at her feet and she stepped out of it, never pausing to let him gather his wits. He followed, nearly tripping on his khakis, and she kicked off her shoes, grinning at him helplessly as he glanced over at his discarded socks. When he paused, wanting to tidy up the living room he'd just destroyed, she leaned into his ear and let her hair fall around them like a curtain, shielding him from the nagging thoughts worming into his brain.

"I don't have to be first all the time, but right now I'm going to insist."

With a concerted effort, he managed to push it all to a Second Priority level of importance and felt himself float out of his body for one brief second, similar to the moments before he solved an important equation, only at this exact moment he was without a single scientific thought other than noting that her chest was flushed lightly.

Crashing back into his body, he nodded, admitting to himself intentionally that she really was beautiful, though it seemed so insignificant in light of all the other things she was. Penny, seeing the light of recognition spark behind his eyes, warmed all over and took a moment to kiss him again, noting with delight he was returning her affection with measured, deliberate physical responses. Snapping away, she jerked his shirts over his head and gave him a soft nudge until he toppled backwards to her bed and found himself propped on her pillows, Penny collapsing at his side.

After some squirming to rid the bed of extraneous pillows, they worked themselves under the covers and Sheldon gasped for breath as she sat back and worked at the clasp of her bra, cursing softly under her breath with the unexpected snag. Sliding out of bed, she marched over to the mirror over her dresser and turned in profile, muttering a threat against the garment until it finally parted, causing his breath to catch as the thin strip of extra flesh across her back came into full view. She shrugged off her bra and returned to him. He knew this time she expected him to take in the full sight of her and blinked silently as she threw her leg over his hips, dropped her sheets and comforter over them, and cupped his face between her hands, lavishing him with kisses both highly intrusive and wildly pleasing. He sat up against her, blindly following his biological imperatives, and only when Penny felt his hand ghost over the waistband of her panties did she decide to proceed.

His hips lifted off the bed to comply with her silent demand and he had to blush at himself. When her chest collided with his, he buried his fingers in her hair and stared at her ceiling before realizing belatedly that this was really happening and she didn't seem to care an iota that in a matter of moments they would be exchanging fluids. Saliva being one thing, and whatever was going to happen when she finally discarded her panties.

"Penny..."

The sound in his voice alerted her and she sat back on his thighs and reached for the drawer next to the bed. "Sure, sure..."

The pangs of disappointment, which was the last thing he expected, made him cough out an odd noise and she looked sharply at him. "I am sort of...on birth control, Sheldon."

"I trust you're devoid of any and all sexually transmitted diseases or infections, or else I would have noticed the symptoms in Leonard a long time ago." Even in the dim light of her apartment, he could tell her look was less than pleased. "I'm sorry," he immediately added, worrying she would swing her lovely legs away and sashay in her distinctly _Penny_ way to the bathroom.

"Can you catch crazy from sex with a nutcase?" her flat voice alerted him he wasn't quite in trouble yet, but nearing it.

"I'll let you know tomorrow after I check myself," he snapped back and Penny, her mouth pumping open and shut in shock and outrage, crashed against his again and she reached between them, causing a whimper to squeak out of his throat. Trying dearly to find some sort of equilibrium, some place she could remember he was inexperienced and relying on her for all his information, she still found it impossible to take it easy.

Groaning softly, he found an overwhelming ecstasy swallowing the last of his common sense whenever he let himself think about just what her hands were doing, what her hair felt like as it gently brushed over his face, his neck, his shoulders. Even in the second before she situated herself over him, whispered a warning, and dropped like a stone onto his lap in a way that redefined _close_ to him, he was desperate to fling his mind somewhere else. Some hidden romantic part of him knew it was wrong to think of something else; however, he knew biologically that he was going to be a spectacular disappointment if he didn't at least attempt to think about her welfare. So, unable to think of anything else, he began listing elements by their electronegativity. He didn't get very far before letting out a loud, "Oh!" and receiving a giggle in return.

Every time he thought of something new to occupy his mind and keep him from prematurely abandoning the moment for what he could only guess would be utter thoughtlessness, she would kiss him and _oh._ When he said it aloud, when she jolted him from his frantic mutterings under his breath, he both wanted to clutch her to him and shove her away, to find a way to embrace the whole world.

Though he knew very little of sexual relationships and what was expected of him, he could sometimes catch a glimpse of Penny leaning back, her body starting to shine with a light dusting of sweat, and she appeared, as far as her facial expressions seemed to indicate, to be enjoying herself. And, inexplicably, he could tell that if he succumbed and let her use her superior experience to do whatever it was she was doing, she would be disappointed in him. And failure, to Dr. Sheldon Cooper, was simply _not_ an option.

He was a man not known for his brevity. He did not—_oh!—_ want to be known for his brevity tonight. So, settling his hands heavily on her hips, he slowed her rocking down to a modest pace, and then to a stop, and closed his eyes, starting over at the beginning of his list of elements, this time aloud.

"Actinium, Lanthanum, Potassium, Strontium--" He inhaled sharply when Penny's warm hands drifted over his stomach and up to his chest, putting pressure on him as she leaned to silence him with a kiss.

Penny felt him bite down gently on her tongue, and then twist his face away, trying to push her away enough to catch his breath, but the second his hand stretched across the top of her breasts, he let out a noise of distress and screwed his face up. "Strontium!" he practically shrieked, unable to focus on both his list and the fact Penny had begun to move, albeit tentatively.

"Sheldon, what are you doing?" Unable to stop herself, she frowned at him.

"Cerium, Thorium, Sodium, Yttrium, Lithium..."

"Sheldon, sweetie, you're freaking me out." She grabbed his chin and made him look her in the eye, but he was buried under a cloudy stare that seemed like a mixture of her old Sheldon, probably freaking out about germs and the socks still in the living room, but also some purely sexual thing she'd never seen in him before.

He gasped yet again and pulled his hand away laboriously, checking his watch. His eyes wanted to widen out of his head—he had no gauge what was normal in any sense of the word, not in _this_ experiment. "I feel as though I'm spinning out of control, Penny."

"That's the point," she whispered into his ear, kissing it. "Just let it happen for _once._ I promise it won't be as scary as you think."

His head pressed into the pillow heavily and he let out yet another loud _oh_ as she resumed her cautious work. Curling his arms over her back, he tried to resume where he left off before, mouthing the remaining elements without alerting Penny, but she was making soft noises in his ear now and _ohhh_ he couldn't help but want to forget about picking this part of his life apart, to just observe and not try to understand every cause, reason, and particle.

"Puh-potassium again," he felt her mouth crash against his and he tugged her hair gently before tearing his mouth away, finding not enough air in the world to satiate his burning lungs. Everything felt so wonderful at that moment—he wasn't sure he'd ever concerned himself with the tactile pleasure of life much before. He enjoyed soft sheets, clothes that didn't chafe, and the inexplicable comfort of laying his face against his mother's hair when he cried as a child. But since then, he concerned his bodily comfort with nutrition, lumbar support, and predictability.

"Praseodymium, Protactinium, Neodymium, Promethium, _oh!_"

"Sheldon, if you name another stupid element on that stupid table, I'll leave some of your _brain_ splattered on the wall and that's a _promise," _Penny growled and Sheldon sat up against her chest, losing his place in his list. He desperately wanted to push her buttons just a little bit more, just to show her he _always_ had more self-control than she did, but he couldn't. Everything was just...

_ Oh._

He bit down on her neck as she sifted her fingers through his hair and whispered a soft encouragement to him and it was like he had momentarily shrugged off whatever it was that kept him from letting his guard down. A growl erupted from him and everything got sort of tight and then it was like nothing had ever existed before and he didn't mind it, in fact it sort of felt nice to think there was no thinking that needed to be done. He smiled, thinking maybe he was given temporary access to all the answers he sought.

A wave of drowsiness followed and he relaxed against the pillows of Penny's bed, finally returning to a normal equilibrium. "Mm, Penny..."

"Mm, what?" she teased, sliding to his side and cautiously snuggling into his side. She was still buzzing, but from Sheldon's flushed face to his feet poking from the bottom of the sheets, there was little he could do at that exact moment to help her out.

"What now?"

"You mean in the next ten minutes, or in the next two hours? Or years?"

He licked his lips and let out a hoarse sigh. "I suppose the next ten minutes are of immediate concern. After that, I'm not particularly interested at the moment."

"Well, she looked at the clock hanging by her vanity and sighed. "It's just after midnight, so we'll get dressed and go back over to your place to finish up the party and clean up before bed. Then we'll figure out where we're sleeping and," she tilted her face, kissing his warm, damp cheek, "I'll kiss you goodnight and we'll go from there."

Before he could consider her answer, Sheldon swallowed, squirming in her bed uncomfortably. "Penny, everything is _wet._"

"It happens."

"I'm not staying here, not even if you change the sheets. And this can _never_ happen in my bed." He almost swung himself out of the bed that instant, but Penny had curled around his shoulders and hoisted a leg over his thighs, squeezing him tightly all around.

"Never say never, Sheldon."

He dearly wanted to object, to tell her all the 'nevers' in his life that were constant, reliable, and real. Finding himself unable, he considered the sentiment, decided just this once to let it go and let her think she'd finally confounded him, and he settled for a contented sigh because he would never find a woman he loved, he would never voluntarily kiss another person, would never marry, have children, share his life, his mind, his body with anyone. Because he didn't accept strong human emotions and put himself in embarrassing situations when he was overcome with them. Because if Penny called him her boyfriend and his mother found out, the change would simply continue and he'd only just found this small space to rest.

"You kissed me underneath the mistletoe, Sheldon." She nudged him before he could fall asleep. "What did Meemaw say in her card?"

Licking his lips yet again, Sheldon sighed. "She extends an invitation to the annual Cooper family gathering for New Year's Eve. I myself haven't gone in several years, but apparently my cousin Jeanetta just got engaged and it's some sort of ordeal. I absolutely have to be there, Missy tells me."

Penny pouted her lips. "I took some days off, but I was hoping to have my parents wire me some money so I could go home..."

"I expected as much," he muttered. "With my," he shuddered, "sabbatical, I have no excuse."

Sitting up on her elbow, Penny stared down at him. "You're taking the train?"

"Of course." A lazy smile spread over his face and Penny marveled at how relaxed he seemed. "I love trains."

"I know you do," she giggled despite herself, and tried to look serious. "Are tickets more reasonably priced than plane tickets?"

"Price isn't the point. I loathe the altitude and the cramped, airtight quarters. I suppose it's a bit more expensive than a flight from Pasadena to Houston, but that seems inconsequential considering my comfort and peace of mind."

Able to suppress her desire to call him a name and slap her palm to her face in resignation, Penny lowered herself back to his shoulder and squirmed closer, throwing her leg over his knee and pulling him closer. "I meant for me. Maybe I could borrow money from home to go with you so I could meet your grandmother."

She heard his heart speed up and played her fingers over his chest, wondering if he'd notice she was diligently tracing clockwise circles. He did, but said nothing.

"Don't be silly. I can lend you the money. I've told you before I have no use for my emergency money outside of an emergency situation." He squirmed in the bed again. "As wonderfully novel this whole situation is, I really must insist on getting out of this bed, Penny. Do you feel the moisture or am I imagining it?"

"You're not imagining it—sex is generally a wet activity." Penny's tone said her patience was wearing thin.

Looking at her with a slight frown, he lifted the sheets a little and peeked under, giving pause when he saw the light from her living room casting shadows over them and illuminating the image of their bodies pressed together. He blinked several times, committing the picture to memory, wondering if he'd ever believe this moment had happened.

"An experience not to be repeated, I take it."

He shook his head, dropping the sheet. "On the contrary, I found the entire thing very enjoyable. I just need time to master the logistics of it. I'm given to understand there are many ways of achieving orgasm." He paused and frowned gently yet again. "Did you?"

"You exceeded my expectations," she answered politely and kissed him before throwing the sheets off them and sitting up, smoothing her ruined hair. "Get dressed and we'll head back over. You won't sleep at all if you don't get to tidy up over there."

"I need fresh clothes!"

"Sheldon, sweetie..." She rubbed her face, finding the humor at last. "You can't go back to the part with different clothes on. Everyone will know where we were and what we were doing."

His eyes bugged and he sat up a little. "How could they possibly know? The evidence isn't sufficient to suggest anything of a sexual nature happened." He made a soft noise in his throat, thinking of something as a look of relief spread over him. "For all they know, you spilled grape juice on my slacks and my replacement pair didn't match my shirt, so I changed entirely."

Shaking her head, she leaned and kissed him quickly on the lips. "No, we've been gone for a while now, and you did lay the kiss of the century on me right before we left. I think they know anyway. I'm just trying not to draw attention to us."

A look of careful apprehension crossed his face and his eyes trickled over her bare chest as she leaned to find her discarded bra. "I'm given to understand that this entire interlude is to be treated as a secret?"

"What?" She sat back up and pulled the bra on, fiddling with the straps. "No, it's not like I'm embarrassed of you or it's gotta be some big secret. It's just not...proper social convention to go back to a party and announce, whether verbally or by wearing a completely new outfit, that you just dipped on your own party to have sex in your neighbor's apartment."

Sheldon's chin fell and he looked at the sheets as she tossed them in a heap and stood up, yanking open her drawer to find fresh panties. "Interesting."

"Please get dressed so we can go back?" she asked, trying to keep the whining tone from her voice, but until she repeated the question in a higher, grating voice, Sheldon didn't seem to hear her. Gradually, as he dragged himself from the bed, he shook the cotton from between his ears and had the sense to wipe smudges of lip gloss from his cheeks, lips, neck, and chin. He smoothed clothes that hadn't been on the floor long enough to rumple and made short work of washing his face, hands, and anything that had gotten _wet_ with a borrowed washcloth before putting anything on.

She brushed past him to go into the bathroom and fix her makeup, pausing just before she entered, and threw a shit-eating grin his way. "I just thought of something, Dr. Cooper."

He knew this tone and couldn't help but level her with a flat, condescending stare, waiting for her to use some folksy phrase in an attempt to get his goat.

"I _did_ get to see you naked." She waited just long enough to see him press his lips together, hating that he'd been wrong somehow, that she'd _won_ in some odd way. She waited just a touch longer, smiling at the blush that crept across his cheeks, and snapped the door shut behind her needlessly.

Penny fixed her hair in record time, found her clutch purse, and took a deep breath, smiling encouragingly at Sheldon as they approached her door. Scowling suspiciously, he put his arm out, blocking Penny from opening it, and jerked it open loudly, quickly. Howard and Leonard, looking guilty but attentive still, stumbled and caught themselves, looking up in horror at Sheldon's relaxed, peeved stare, his lips pressed in a tight line.

"Uh, hey buddy!"

Penny surged forward, her eyes wild, electric green in the light of the hall as she stormed out, towering over the two short scientists quivering in their shoes. "What the _hell?_ How long were you two out here? Do you have any idea how weird this is, Leonard? I expect it from Howard, but _really?_"

"To be fair," Howard held his hands out, miming a patting motion, as if telling Penny to simmer down telepathically, "you _were_ being pretty loud."

"Oh, bullshit!" Penny's face turned pink. "I'll cop to the sex, Howard, but I'm _not_ loud. I learned how to be courteous in college."

"Again, fair enough. When I said you, I meant more, _you._" Howard pointed to the two of them. "Specifically Sheldon, who was making a list of some kind?"

Leonard smiled his geeky smile, the one he reserved for when he found something physics-related particularly amusing in some way. "Yeah, were you arranging the elements by electronegativity?"

Penny glared over at Sheldon but felt her resolve weaken when his steely gaze turned sort of panicked and his cheeks slowly reddened yet again; Penny was sure it was a record of some kind. Heaving a sigh, she shoved Howard and Leonard out of the way and entered their apartment, looking around at the remaining party-goers. Most had filtered out, and Penny found it strange she had spent most of the night listening to Ian wooing them with his roguish good looks and indubitable charm. She couldn't remember many real conversations she'd had with her friends—the shadow of her attempt to get herself through Sheldon's thick skull had clouded everything else.

Raj spun away from the CD changer with a look of relief. "Penny, thank God! Where's Howard? The music stopped and I have no idea what the hell happened to his mixing board layout...why can't we just use an iPod like the rest of the children of the Information Age?"

She moved closer, jabbed the power button on the stereo, and giggled when "Santa Baby" started to play loudly over the speakers. Raj released a relieved sigh and moved closer, putting his hands on his hips.

"Thanks. It was starting to get real quiet in here." He pulled his head back in surprise. "Hey, did Sheldon do that?"

She lifted her hand to cover the side of her neck and Raj shook his head, pointing farther back and she found a little sore spot, figuring there were teeth marks of some kind and he'd folded himself around her in such a way she hadn't been able to see the mark when facing a mirror. Sheldon, gone from the living room, winced in the mirror as he smoothed his hair and tugged on the collar of his inner shirt and examined her very modest work.

"Yeah, he did." Penny answered at long last, sighing as she tried to let part of her hair down to cover up the conspicuous mark. "Why didn't you come over with them when they were listening in?"

"Because knowing you thought he was romantically viable made me able to talk to you. I think hearing _that_ I'd upgrade to committing bodily functions in front of you." Raj and Penny shuddered together and she patted him on the shoulder, feeling an odd warmth for him.

"Just for that, when I make them watch me make out with him, you don't have to be there."

"Penny, that's cruel." Raj barely hid the sly smile he wanted to give her.

She smiled, tilted her head back a little, and blinked a few extra times before responding, "They listened to me pop the poor man's cherry. There's not a thing in this world cruel enough."

Sheldon returned from the bathroom with a smug air about him as he double-checked his watch. "As per our roommate agreement, this party is officially _over._ Please vacate the premises and call a cab for yourselves, thank you!"

Penny raced to the door while confused guests suited up for the chilly weather outside. "I'm so sorry, he had fun tonight, I promise. It's not you, he's just fussy." She repeated sentiments of the same ilk until the last person had vacated, and then let the rest of her hair down from the clip she'd been wrestling with all night, tossed her purse onto Sheldon's desk chair, and rested her back against the part of the door not obscured by the dartboard. Feeling a tremor in her legs, Penny reminded herself to mention the shaky feeling if she caught Leonard or Howard making any smart comments.

Staring incredulously at his wilted friends, Sheldon looked at his watch again, hoping to elicit some sort of reaction, but got nothing. So, making his little unhappy noise, he stood and fetched gifts from under the tree.

"I suppose I'll be the elf this one time. As most of you know, it's now past midnight, and therefore Christmas Day. I propose gifts now so I may have the rest of the day to put together a train itinerary for myself and Penny. After I sleep and call my mother, of course." He returned from the tree and dropped boxes onto Howard and Leonard's laps, hoarding the other one he'd fetched to himself.

Penny suddenly felt very nervous. There simply was no topping last year's gift, but she'd made a valiant effort. A collaborative effort she hoped dearly would pay off. Her gift to him was still tucked under the tree in a thin package that to her was clearly a comic book plus a few odds and ends.

Howard opened first, muttering that he was under the impression Sheldon didn't buy gifts for them, but upon finding a book inside with bookmarked chapters on 'latent homosexual urges,' he laughed snidely and dropped the book onto Raj's lap. They subtly moved a few more inches apart and Penny saw them encroaching on the space she would normally occupy on the couch.

Leonard opened the top of his box next and rolled his eyes, tipping out a card Penny thought she recognized. "Where the hell am I driving you?"

"Well, the only thing I can think of at the moment is the train station, but that is a contingency card, if you will." Sheldon seemed tickled by the whole thing. It was like he'd realized Christmas was the perfect opportunity to tease his friends while participating in a social convention he loathed.

Penny suddenly dreaded her gift from Sheldon; he'd clearly learned since last year. And since she was still working through a closet full of bubble bath, scrubs, salts, washes, sprays, and shampoos, she figured he wouldn't have gone with a sincere gift this time.

The gas card for Leonard was like an investment for himself. Suddenly she wondered if he'd give her something pertaining to the way she perpetually annoyed him, made him forget about his work, forced him to play nice. But he held onto the last box tightly, not looking at her as she pulled up Leonard's desk chair and sat carefully.

She vaguely heard them opening the gifts from her Sheldon had stood to distribute. Chewing faintly on a fingernail, she smiled and winked when appropriate, muttering, "You're welcome, Sweetie," whenever it seemed to fit. They each took turns muttering about this or that, mostly apologizing for assuming Sheldon would refuse another Saturnalia gift-giving debacle. Penny nodded blankly, her body still buzzing weakly. Fatigue started to drug her with sweet fantasies of collapsing in her bed, sticky sheets of not. Smiling to herself, she bit the inside of her cheek to wipe the grin off her face before the others noticed, but Sheldon pressed a gift into her hands with a smug smile and she didn't bother hiding her look of unease.

"Am I safe in assuming I'll open this and feel like a complete idiot?"

"Penny." Sheldon's tone said he knew so much more than her he shouldn't even bother speaking to her, but the tenderness in his eyes urged her to cast aside her fear and tear the paper away. Taking a deep breath, she slid her finger along the taped edge of the paper and tore it away, hefting the box experimentally before cautiously lifting the lid.

From the styrofoam, she could tell it's glass, and when she pulls away the first half of the foam barrier, she hears the splash of water just faintly and knows Sheldon has outdone himself not in price, rarity, or craftsmanship, but in all around _friendliness._ She hoists out a rather impressive snowglobe and waits for the fake snow to settle. In her head, Sheldon is rattling off the compounds the snow is made of. The boys are currently staring at her eager smile of anticipation, wondering why they hadn't pegged her for a snowglobe collecting nutcase.

The snow settled enough she can pick out familiar buildings and a little sign of sorts laying at the city's feet. It's Omaha, and it's covered in a blanket of snow befitting of Christmas Day. She gives the globe a shake and watches the swirling vortex of blizzard descend on her city with a nostalgic smile.

"Thank you," she finally whispered into the long silence stretched before her and Sheldon slips around Leonard's legs by the coffee table and knees next to Penny, taking the item from her and twisting a knob on the bottom before grandly handing it back, along with the Christmas card from his grandmother. She recognized the tune coming from her new decoration, all tinkly and sort of cheesy, just like she figured it should be. "Omaha," by Waylon Jennings.

"Oh, wow, I miss home so much but I don't want to be _anywhere_ else." She laughed to herself and chanced a look up, seeing the same proud, meek smile on each face except Sheldon, who looked a touch concerned.

"My intention was _not_ to make you want to go home against your will. You're still coming with me to Galveston, aren't you?"

Howard's holiday-esque smile fell off his face. "Seriously? Seriously, Sheldon?"

Giving them all a flat look, Sheldon stood back up and folded his arms. "I'd like to see you hold your own at a Cooper family gathering, Wolowitz. My cousin just got engaged and they're fit to put just about anyone in their place right about now. I'm not with a wicked streak simply because I was bullied as a child—it's how the Coopers _communicate._"

Penny took a peek at Meemaw's card, using it as evidence, or at the least a validation of Sheldon's claim.

_Dear Moonpie,_

_ Y'all have no excuse for not being home with family for the holidays, but I'll wager a romantic guess and say you've found a suitable home away from home. Your mother and I expect a call on Christmas morning, before all your cousins show up from Corpus Christi. Remember to send thank you cards for the gifts shipped to your apartment this year, please. I don't want to have to call your Aunt Lil and explain you accidentally threw out her package thinking it was a letter bomb again._

_ I'm sure with the time your momma asked off for you, you'll have time to visit over New Year's. You will be attending Jeanetta's engagement party and then the party the following night—even your brother will be there so I don't want to hear no excuses. Your momma and I have been talking, and I think it'd be in your best interests to bring that neighbor-girl of yours so I can meet her. I know how you hate to invite people to these 'embarrassing' family functions, so I've addressed the card to both you and her. I'll hazard a guess and say you should probably get used to jointly addressed mail._

_ Anyway, you tell that young lady to accompany you home this winter after she kisses you under the mistletoe this season. If she don't kiss you, she ain't worth it. Give my regards to Penny._

_Meemaw_

Penny folded the card shut with a soft giggle, the image of the older woman's perfect, tiny handwriting burned into her retinas. "Sheldon, she..."

"Meemaw loves me very, very much. That I tolerate you at all means she's practically _in_ love with you," Sheldon interrupted very softly and then looked over at the last gift under the tree, suspicious at the size of the box.

"Go ahead. It's the last one, anyway." She listened as the song stopped on her new bauble and spun it around once more, watching the snow swirl up around the Omaha skyline once again. _When he wants to be, _she thought to herself as secretly as she could, _he can be cluelessly adorable._ When she chanced a glance upward, Leonard had the same proud if not pained grin on his face he had the past few weeks. So he was big enough to be happy for her, but not quite removed enough to stomach the complete _idea_ of it. Still, the man had had his ear pressed up against her door while she and Sheldon had been...he didn't deserve her usual consideration.

Penny stood before Sheldon returned to his spot to open and forced an arm-pinning hug on him, even going so far as to kiss his cheek before spinning to go to her own seat. She turned to find Howard was in her chair, one eyebrow raised, and Raj had scooted over to the far side of the couch. Sighing, she sat at the same time as Sheldon, wondering just how much they were going to force her to test the poor man's limits.

Perhaps _she_ was still the only one who understood he wouldn't like to be manhandled, particularly not in front of his friends, wouldn't like things whispered in his ears unless he was already naked and in a bed, and would give her a blank, meaningless stare if she snuggled up to him to watch him unwrap his gift.

But he had it in him to take snippets of his understanding and run with it. Before he tore the paper totally from the box, he gave her one of his tender smiles, the ones she usually saw out of the corner of her eye when she managed to master some new move on 'Age of Conan' or referenced a page number in the book they were heatedly discussing over laundry soap and fabric softener. A soft roll of his eyes, telling himself he didn't think it was cute, but pathetic, and then this soft smile. This one said, _Don't worry, Penny. I'm sure I'll appreciate it._

She held her breath as he pulled out the box from the wrapping paper, discarded it, and Leonard quickly flattened it into a pile with all the rest.

She'd done well this year with everyone, but Sheldon was so simple in this regard, she worried she'd been too predictable this time. He clearly hadn't seen it coming last year. Then again, she was pretty sure he viewed her as a permanent, unpredictable whirling dervish in his life. She was okay with that.

He tipped the box and out spilled two very different paper objects. He hefted a copy of his own dissertation, the one he'd tried to pass off to George Smoot with her help, and noted there were scribbled red pen marks in all the margins. Some were favorable, some were more critical. Peeved and interested, he flipped through the 80 or so pages of his work and came to a rest at the final page before his list of sources popped up.

_A very interesting endeavor to consider, Dr. Cooper. Thank you for passing this along; I'll contact your superior after the New Year about both the grant money and the research fellowship. Wonderful work._

He glanced all over the page before finding it, hidden away in the lower corner, the signature of George Smoot.

"Okay, so I saved a copy of that paper when I had to get your flash drive, and when Leonard told what happened in San Francisco, I thought it was probably a problem of approach more than anything. I've had it beaten into my head every day how friggin' brilliant you are, so I drafted a letter," she guided his hands back to the start of the paper where she'd inserted, before even his introduction, a page-long letter addressed to Mr. Smoot. "I drafted a letter asking him to take a look. His secretary called to make sure it wasn't _you_ from San Francisco, and I assured her it was _not,_ and then I got this back in the mail."

Leonard peered over Sheldon's shoulder and grinned. "Oh, so you did mention the grant?"

"Well, he didn't get to see Smoot's face light up when he read it," Penny shrugged. "I figured I might as well milk it for all I could. There's some research thingie coming to the university soon, and if Sheldon here agrees to do joint research with someone in your department, Leonard...they can almost double the money for the physics department in ten years. At least I think that's what he said—I sort of zoned out at the mention of 'super-collider.'"

Leonard stifled the laugh that wanted to bubble over. They had laughed at Sheldon's arrogance enough times to know it was bad when he actually earned the accolades he claimed he deserved. His work had now earned he and his compatriots in science more funds for research, a continuing grant, and the approval of a Nobel prize-winner.

"Oh, and there's this." She picked up the forgotten brown paper sleeve on his lap, slipping out a perfectly packaged comic book, still in a plastic sleeve, looking like it'd been stored in a vault of some kind, away from sunlight and moisture, but not so dry to make the pages brittle. He gaped between the two items she'd given him.

"My neighbor back in Omaha was having an estate sale because her son passed away and she said he'd been collecting these since he was a little boy. He had a trunk _full_ of them. I asked my mom to go for me and she found it. Crazy, huh?"

Howard leaned closer to Leonard. "He hugged her for Nimoy's DNA, you said? Okay, assuming he remembers last year and hasn't regressed to a state of infantile desire, how much are you willing to bet he has a freak-out over Smoot's sign of approval _and_ Superman's first appearance ever?"

"That comic book is worth almost half a million dollars," Raj whispered and Penny spun, looking wildly at the three of them, who were staring at the comic book while Sheldon stared, twitching and watery, at her.

"What? No! It wasn't! I mean, my neighbor charged an arm and a leg for it—I won't say how much—but I've _never_ had that much money to spend on any of you!" She felt cornered somehow.

"Clearly your neighbor has no clue what kind of money she's sitting on. Did you get any others?"

"Others? Wolowitz, this single piece of memorabilia cost me enough, okay? Though apparently it could have been worse..." She felt dizzy thinking about it, to be honest. She'd just given Sheldon something rare enough he could, ostensibly, sell it and retire on the funds, if he were smart about things. What she couldn't bring herself to say was she also had Batman's first appearance in her apartment, locked in an old pistol-case underneath her bed. They'd each cost her a pretty penny, but she'd hardly thought about it at the time. Wired her parents the money she should have spent getting a plane ticket home to see them. Instead, she had Christmas and his birthday ready to go, and still he was catatonic, staring at her.

Her face fell even flatter. "Oh, I've broken him! Great!"

"Oh, he'll come to," Howard promised. "He's probably figuring out if he can rent an armored car to get that to his safety deposit box before someone realizes he's got it."

"The little jerk didn't even have anything related to the Flash, or I would have--"

"No, it's perfect." Sheldon finally snapped out his daze and looked down into his hands, wanting nothing more than to hug her without all the uncertainty and awkwardness of last year. Then, remembering all her little rewards the past few weeks, he carefully placed his new treasures on the coffee table, sat back up, and seized the back of her neck, yanking her halfway into his lap to kiss her.

She squeaked, windmilling before falling against his chest, and then took a moment to glare at Howard and Leonard before sidling up a little closer and deepening the kiss. Leonard stood, swiping his hand over his hair, searching for that feeling of jealousy he'd always felt before when Penny was with some other guy, and he felt an odd peace mixed in with the strong desire to vomit.

_Maybe I just knew it was always wrong she wasn't with him?_


End file.
